Until the late 1800s, circumcision was only practiced by Jews and Muslims and was abhorred by westerners. Men knew that their foreskins were the best part of their penises. Read what two medical textbooks from the 1700s had to say about the foreskin:

“The glans cover’d with its prepuce, which is at one of its extremities, has such tender and sensible [sensitive] flesh, that nature hath there established the throne of sensitivity and pleasure in women’s embraces.” [Venette, The mysteries of conjugal love reveal’d, 1712.]

“The glans, which is at the end of the penis, [is] covered with a very thin membrane, by reason of which it is of a most exquisite feeling. It is covered with a preputium or foreskin, which in some covers the top of the yard [slang for penis] quite close, in others not so, and by its moving up and down in the act of copulation brings pleasure to both the man and woman.” [Aristotle’s complete masterpiece, in three parts, 1749.]

In the 1800s, Christian moralists and doctors began to promote the idea that ejaculation weakened men and that masturbation caused all sorts of diseases and health problems. They did not understand most of human physiology and they thought that humans had a limited amount of “vital nerve force” and that if you spent it on masturbation, you would become weak. They tried to stop boys from masturbating by writing moralizing pamphlets, but this had limited success as masturbation is a normal and healthy activity very common in adolescence.

To understand why they targeted the foreskin to curb masturbation, you need to learn how the intact penis functions in sex and masturbation. Intact men can masturbate without lubrication by moving their foreskins up and down over the glans (head of the penis.) This gives immense pleasure in several ways:

The nerves and muscles of the ridged band at the end of the foreskin stretch and relax as they pass over the head of the penis. This stretching is very pleasurable in much the same way as it feels good for a woman to have her vagina stretched by a penis or fingers.

The foreskin alternately covers and uncovers the coronal ridge (the edge of the “mushroom cap” head of the penis. This controls how close the man is to orgasm as it switches up the sensation and gives the nerves time to rest in between sensation.

The frenulum (the “string” that attaches the foreskin to the underside of the penis) stretches and then “snaps back” as the foreskin moves up and down.

The fine-touch nerves in the inner foreskin give a fine type of sensation that you can feel in the palms, fingertips and lips.

The reason why the foreskin had to go was because the foreskin was the best part of the penis that provided most of the pleasure.

Don’t believe me? Hear the doctors in their own words (taken from the site Circumcision Quotes):

“I refer to masturbation as one of the effects of a long prepuce; not that this vice is entirely absent in those who have undergone circumcision, though I never saw an instance in a Jewish child of very tender years, except as the result of association with children whose covered glans have naturally impelled them to the habit.” [M. J. Moses, The Value of Circumcision as a Hygienic and Theraputic Measure, NY Medical Journal, vol.14 (1871): pp.368-374.]

“A remedy for masturbation which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision. The operation should be performed without administering anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutory effect upon the mind, especially, if it is connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases.” [John Harvey Kellog, creator of the Corn Flake, Treatment for Self-Abuse and Its Effects, Plain Facts for Old and Young, Burlington, Iowa: P. Segner & Co. 1888, p. 295.]

“Measures more radical than circumcision would, if public opinion permitted their adoption, be a true kindness to patients of both sexes.” [Jonathan Hutchinson, On Circumcision as Preventative of Masturbation, Archives of Surgery, vol. 2 (1891): pp. 267-268.] Note that he is actually suggesting that castration would be good!

“Clarence B. was addicted to the secret vise practiced among boys. I performed an orificial operation, consisting of circumcision… He needed the rightful punishment of cutting pains after his illicit pleasures.” [N. Bergman, Report of a Few Cases of Circumcision, Journal of Orificial Surgery, vol. 7 (1898): pp.249-251.]

“Finally, circumcision probably tends to increase the power of sexual control. The only physiological advantage which the prepuce can be supposed to confer is that of maintaining the penis in a condition susceptible to more acute sensation than would otherwise exist. It [the foreskin] may increase the pleasure of intercourse and the impulse to it: but these are advantages which in the present state of society can well be spared. If in their loss increase in sexual control should result, one should be thankful.” [Editor, Medical News. Our London Letter. Medical World,(1900).vol.77:pp.707-8] (Note that by “sexual control,” he means having less sex, not control by the man of his sexual response during sex.)

“It has been urged as an argument against the universal adoption of circumcision that the removal of the protective covering of the glans tends to dull the sensitivity of that exquisitely sensitive structure and thereby diminishes sexual appetite and the pleasurable effects of coitus. Granted that this be true, my answer is that, whatever may have been the case in days gone by, sensuality in our time needs neither whip nor spur, but would be all the better for a little more judicious use of curb and bearing-rein.” [E. Harding Freeland, Circumcision as a Preventative of Syphilis and Other Disorders, The Lancet, vol. 2 (29 Dec. 1900): pp.1869-1871.]

“Another advantage of circumcision… is the lessened liability to masturbation. A long foreskin is irritating per se, as it necessitates more manipulation of the parts in bathing… This leads the child to handle the parts, and as a rule, pleasurable sensations are elicited from the extreamly sensitive mucous membrane, with resultant manipulation and masturbation. The exposure of the glans penis following circumcision … lessens the sensitiveness of the organ… It therefore lies with the physician, the family adviser in affairs of hygiene and medical, to urge its acceptance.” [Ernest G. Mark, Circumcision, American Practitioner and News, vol. 31 (1901): p. 231.]

“Circumcision not only reduces the irritability of the child’s penis, but also the so-called passion of which so many married men are so extreamly proud, to the detriment of their wives and their married life. Many youthful rapes could be prevented, many separations, and divorces also, and many an unhappy marriage improved if this unnatural passion was cut down by a timely circumcision.” [L.W. Wuesthoff, MD. Benefits of Circumcision. Medical World, (1915) Vol.33. p.434.]

“I suggest that all male children should be circumcised. This is “against nature”, but that is exactly the reason why it should be done. Nature intends that the adolescent male shall copulate as often and as promiscuously as possible, and to that end covers the sensitive glans so that it shall be ever ready to receive stimuli. Civilization, on the contrary, requires chastity, and the glans of the circumcised rapidly assumes a leathery texture less sensitive than skin. Thus the adolescent has his attention drawn to his penis much less often. I am convinced that masturbation is much less common in the circumcised. With these considerations in view it does not seem apt to argue that ‘God knows best how to make little boys.’” [R.W. Cockshut. Circumcision. British Medical Journal, Vol.2 (1935): p.764.]

The purpose of circumcision was to destroy the man’s sexual pleasure. So why, 150 years later, do so many people think that circumcision does not change a man’s sexuality at all? Circumcision became a “tradition” separate from the anti-masturbation motivation, one passed down from father to son in a sort of sad and ignorant repetition compulsion. This was from a confluence of psychological and cultural factors which I have explained in greater detail in this post. Then, in the 1960s, the sexual revolution happened and sex stopped being a bad thing. It was no longer taboo to discuss sex, and sexual enjoyment became a legitimate goal. No one thought anymore that masturbation and ejaculation weakened a man’s vital essence, so that motive was forgotten. Around the same time, Masters and Johnson published their landmark 1966 book Human Sexual Response in which they claimed that there was no difference in sensitivity between circumcised and intact penises. This claim was very influential but was completely wrong, as explained here. In a 2007 study, scientists tested circumcised and intact penises at several points all over the penis and concluded:

“The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce [ridged band, removed in all circumcisions] is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.“ [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17378847]

The foreskin contains a type of nerves called Meissner’s corpuscles that give the same type of fine-touch sensation which is found only in the foreskin, lips and fingertips and palms. They are not in the head of the penis, and they provide all of the “flavor and color” of sex for the man. Sure, most circumcised men can still orgasm, but they are missing all of the pleasurable buildup that as a woman, you take for granted. Some men, however, are unable to orgasm at all because they have so few nerves left. Here are some quotes from men whose sexuality was destroyed or lessened by circumcision:

“i had an average (tight if anything) circumcision. i feel like most other guys who are circumcised have no problems having sex. i have a long term relationship with my girlfriend and even though we have sex without condoms (birth control pills) i still cant have consistent successful sex with her. i get inside her and im thrusting and it gets to the point where im basically feeling nothing. my circumcision is seriously limiting my sex life and putting a disconnect in our relationship. it takes an unusually large amount of effort to orgasm when she is giving me blowjobs/handjobs. circumcision gets me depressed every day.” [http://www.reddit.com/r/Intactivists/comments/rz19l/so_who_else_has_had_their_sex_life_ruined_by/]

“My circumcision is a very bad example, too much skin taken away resulting in erections that can sometimes be uncomfortable, scrotum skin almost half way up my shaft, very bad scarring, skin bridges, some lumpiness and the most uneven cut I’ve ever seen. WHY? did this have to be me. It’s pretty hard being at university with a botched circumcision in a society that doesn’t cut. Also I had some sex the other day and ohh… what do you know I cant feel shit.” [http://foreskin-restoration.net/forum/showthread.php?t=9739]

“Whenever I was fortunate enough to get a blow job, my penis would go limp after about a minute. I never felt enough stimulation to stay hard, let alone to orgasm or even ejaculate. I never understood the fascination with blow jobs. I attributed all the blow jobs in porn to acting and being just another facet of erotic fantasy.” [http://www.restoringtally.com/blog/2011/05/what-big-deal-about-oral-sex]

“I remember in my twenties when I ejaculated I could not bear to have my glans touched because it was hypersensitive at that time. As I reached my late thirties and early forties, I noticed that my glans did not have the hypersensitivity after ejaculation. As my forties flew by I noticed it became more and more difficult to ejaculate during sex. My glans was turning dry and leathery. I had much less sensitivity in my glans and penis. There was only one small spot on my corona where there was any sensitivity. The rest of my glans was less sensitive than a finger. During sex I would pump and pump and, finally, I would ejaculate. Sex took a long time. My wife confessed that I took too long during sex. That did not help at all. I had no trouble masturbating because I could easily stimulate myself with my hand. But, when I was inside my wife, there just was not enough stimulation. Sex became a lot less pleasurable than it was 20 years earlier, even 10 years earlier. As I approached my 50s, I started having trouble keeping an erection during sex.” [http://www.restoringtally.com/blog/2010/01/i-am-circumcised-man-hates-his-circumcision]

“By age 43 I had lost all glans sensitivity. It became difficult, at times even when I was alone, to reach orgasm and ejaculation. This is the big secret here. But of course most cut men don’t even know why they have difficulty with, or lose interest in, intercourse or masturbation with age. Due to the awful damage to my penis, there is just no more physical sensory input to achieve or produce much or any pleasure, and the neurological triggers that lead to orgasm and ejaculation are severely damaged or not even present.” [http://www.drmomma.org/2009/12/circumcision-secret.html]

The vast majority of Americans are ignorant of the purpose of circumcision, and when confronted with it for the first time, often feel angry. That is understandable, but the only rational thing to do is to realize that you should be angry at the doctors for not telling you or your husband’s parents the truth. You can even be angry at fate for being born in the one time and place that circumcision was popular for non-religious reasons. The one thing you cannot do is to get angry at the bearer of the facts, because whether or not you like it, whether or not you blame me or whoever told you the truth about circumcision, the fact remains that the purpose of circumcision has always been to curb male sexuality, and it has been enormously successful. Do not circumcise your sons – give them the gift of complete and normal sexuality.

If you or your partner is circumcised and this makes you very sad, what can you do? You can restore your foreskin. You do this by yourself by slowly stretching the remaining inner foreskin until it can cover the head of your penis. There are several devices you can buy and use in privacy to stretch the skin. It is completely safe and no one has to know but you. Once your restored skin can cover your glans when flaccid, the inner skin will get softer, thinner and smoother, which will provide more sensation, and you will have restored the gliding action that provides so much pleasure to both partners during sex. You will never get back the ridged band at the tip or the frenulum, but men who have restored say that it is completely worth it, and that they could not have imagined ahead of time the increase in pleasure a restored foreskin provides. For more information, see these sites:

107 Responses to The purpose of circumcision is to ruin male sexuality

This is just an excellent article and cuts to the heart of the circumcision controversy. The original reason for introducing this medical ritual to the English-speaking world was to dull sensation to eliminate masturbation. How ironic it is that this is the ONLY true “benefit” that the medical community has claimed, and that American physicians now disclaim this!

It’s amazing that despite what has been written medical literature, despite that it is a historically known fact, circumcision advocates deny it left and right. They insist that diminishing sexuality is a justification only attributable to female circumcision. Now they’re trying to say it *increases* sensitivity.

The moral of the story is that “studies” and “science shows” exactly what it needs to in order to necessitate what is a historically controversial practice.

Sorry if this is offensive. It is not intended to be. This is as low-toned as any of your other posts.

I was severely injured during my circumcision and have not been able to recover. This is oh, so common: I am not the male that I could have been, and there is nothing that can be done to “fix” me. This is the fate of MILLIONS of men, who are deprived of their full manhood.

We now know as a fact: this social surgery — male circumcision — has no benefits: every single claimed-benefit has been disproved. I was mangled for profit and because of ignorance. The American medical establishment has failed to keep up with the latest research and modern physicians have failed to honor their own standard of ethics. Now is the time for change.

I am sorry, John, but I’m not sure I understand the first paragraph of your comment. Would you mind explaining? “Sorry if this is offensive. It is not intended to be. This is as low-toned as any of your other posts.”

So many people are offended by information that shows the dreadful effects of routine infant circumcision (RIC), circumcision of unconsenting minor males, and circumcision of uninformed/misinformed adult males (MC). I would really like folks to understand the message instead of taking offense to the way I present it. The thread here is one of the most reasonable discussions I’ve seen. I just did not want to heighten the emotion — I wanted to present information. Sorry if I’ve confused things!

Ok, I understand now. Given what you have said about being seriously mutilated and unable to function normally, I would guess that the people who get offended by your message do so because your message and existence are irrefutable proof that RIC is wrong. Pro-circ people deny the existence of men who were harmed by circumcision – they have to deny it to keep their pro-circumcision stance – so you are a living reproach that they may have ruined their children’s lives.

Ms Cannon, glad to see you have discovered one of the two intellectual giants among intactivists: Robert Darby of Australia.

I do not doubt at all that RIC results in a lot of adult sexual dysfunctionality, including some cases of PE and ED. Some men had too much cut off when they were babies; others have penises covered with scar tissue. But I do not go as far as you do when you wrote “…the purpose of circumcision has always been to curb male sexuality, and it has been enormously successful.” This was apparently correct in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, but not since 1920. And it was not true at all of the period I call the American Foreskin Holocaust, 1940-85, when a very large majority of white babies emerged circumcised from the maternity ward. I grew up in that era, and I cannot recall ever hearing anything that smacked of “men with foreskins are oversexed”. In fact, it was repeatedly claimed that the foreskin was dispensible because it contributed nothing to sexual pleasure and functionality! As for “enormously successful,” many circumcised men have happy sex lives, especially before their 40s.

Your post points to the crying need for a survey of the American adult penis, based on a stratified random sample stratified by race, age, education, and religion, with oversampling of intact men. The survey would include a clinical examination of the men by a male doctor. For this reason alone, this study would be very expensive. It would also include a detailed interview of the spouses or gay partners of the subjects. This study would shed light on circumcision damage, and on ED and PE as possible consequences of RIC. The number of subjects would be at least 10,000 and preferably 20-30,000. The budget for this study would be at least US$4 million. Absent a study of this nature, RIC should cease immediately because it is unethical to perform medical procedures without a fair idea of the possible adverse outcomes.

Circumcision is doomed, simply because it disgusts a growing number of young unmarried women, the mothers of tomorrow. It offends their sex positivity, an ideology that has made deep inroads into the American female unconscious.

Roger, Some of what you propose has been done. My study of 300 men found that the circumcised participants were 4.5 times as likely to have been diagnosed with ED than the intact men. I believe the severing of the perineal nerve if the culprit. See my white paper at Scribd.

Subjects have to be selected by a random sampling stratified by age, race and education, and the number of subjects has to be much larger than 300. A major objective of such a study would be to count the incidence of PE, ED, having too much cut off, lack of feeling, and dissatisfied spouses.

I urge very strongly thoughtful comparisons of European and North American rates of STD infections and urological problems. I have never read anything stating that Europe has lower rates of PE and ED than the USA. However, I suspect that this is indeed the case.

The work of Morton Frisch in Denmark is moving in a direction I like, but the problem remains: non-Moslem Danes who are circumcised are few and far between. Frisch rightly called for his study to be repeated in countries where there is a healthy mix of cut and uncut men. I submit that Australia and Canada are cases in point.

“…despite it being explicitly documented in a century of medical literature.” Please supply references.

Considering the fact that 19th century physicians understood so well the highly erogenous/pleasurable functions of the foreskin, what do you think accounts for the seeming general milieu of apathy for intactness (I’m assuming this to be true) in non-circumcising cultures such as Europe, specifically the UK?

The extent to which the foreskin and its motion were understood to be central players in the sexual pleasure experienced by both genders, were understood before 1800 astounds me. This understanding vanished between 1850 and 1900, the era when many doctors and moralisers began advocating routine circumcision, often on “moral” grounds. It is difficult to write the history of sexuality at that time, given the overall prudishness of the era, and lack of documentation. But back issues of medical journals published between 1850 and 1914 amply testify to a horrendous ignorance of how nature intended sex to work. Once the English speaking upper middle class was mostly circumcised (by, say, 1930 or so), foreskin appreciation was gone from the chattering class. We are painfully reconstructing that knowledge now.

I can assure you that many younger and less inhibited British women have blogged and commented about how they are pleased by the foreskins of the men with whom they have been intimate. Many women intactivists have never taken a college class.

European doctors and other intellectuals hesitate to speak the truth about the erogenous character of the foreskin, for fear of antagonising Jews and Moslems.

But from my own observation it seems as if, were the average intact “man on the street” in the UK to be polled, the “it’s no big deal either way” attitude will be ubiquitous. (I’ve never done a formal poll to confirm this, but others on the restoration forum have corroborated this observation). If the foreskin is the focus of a man’s erogenous pleasure (and I’m not doubting this for one second–the more I learn, the more it seems apparent to me that the male prepuce is the true analog to the clitoris) what would account for this apathy? Women universally understand the clitoris to be one of the major erogenous areas of their anatomy. How can this general lack of self-awareness on the part of intact men be accounted for? Men are just dumbasses? Ha. I’ve never known intactness so this puzzles me.

Glen Callender gave a great interview to Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon for his Cut Tour podcasts. He is intact and yet he did not understand how important his foreskin was to his sensation until he was an adult. He explains it as when he was young, sex just felt so good and was so exciting that he just felt general good feelings, but when he got older, he learned to separate out where each sensation was coming from. http://infocirc.blogspot.com/2011/12/33-cut-podcast-new-sexual-revolution.html

As for analogizing from women, don’t be so sure. I just read that 43% don’t orgasm during each sexual encounter. I find that appalling, that they do not know how/will not take responsibility to ensure they are satisfied. I think sex knowledge is pretty lacking, actually.

Even Callender, who is pretty sophisticated, had to learn a lot as an adult!
Nearly everything I know about the virtues of the intact penis, I learned after I turned 40. It’s not because being middle aged made me smarter, but because I had to wait until my 40s before I began encountering shrewd probing writing about how the natural penis enhances sex!

Ms Cannon, when I was in college and grad school, tough worldly women, disciples of Erica Jong, routinely wrote, and even complained at parties, that sex with most men was a bore and a chore. It was partly a feminist power trip, to deflate male egos by taking a cynical worldly stance. But I am confident there was a large grain of truth. 30-40 years ago, I assumed that male ineptitude at foreplay was to blame. Or lack of knowledge that KY has to be used with condoms. I now suspect that American RIC had something to do with it. Some women blog and bvlog their sex lives, and these women have revealed that there are young American men who thrust too fast, too hard, and too deep, causing discomfort, even pain. I am convinced that this style of intercourse is a consequence of circumcision.

My wife comes every time, and my being intact may help here. But the crucial fact could be that she always combines masturbation with penetration. I have never read an explicit description of this simple trick.

“My wife comes every time, and my being intact may help here. But the crucial fact could be that she always combines masturbation with penetration. I have never read an explicit description of this simple trick.”

You can blame Freud for this one. He said that clitoral orgasms were for the immature and that mature women had vaginal orgasms. Combine that with many women’s prudishness about touching themselves and you have a huge number of women (and, by extension, men) who think they should come just from having a penis inserted into them. This works for very few women, something like 10%. Most women need clitoral stimulation to come, and I do see this in more advanced sex manuals, but rarely in popular titles like Cosmopolitan, etc.

Interestingly enough, circumcised women actually report vaginal orgasm at much higher rates, and orgasm at all at higher rates! See here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17970975 “The group of 137 women, affected by different types of FGM/C, reported orgasm in almost 86%, always 69.23%; 58 mutilated young women reported orgasm in 91.43%, always 8.57%.”

Just wanted to say Hi, and leave a comment since I’ve written so much about women’s sexuality — I don’t have a medical degree or university funding to support my research, but I’m a woman with a vagina and a clit who began a journey to discover what my body could do, since the medical world and academia don’t value women’s sexuality as much.

A 2002 study showed 70% of women have never orgasmed during sex — and I am one of those. Many women endure painful sex due, in large part, to male partners who are circumcised and need “friction sex” or “dry sex” to feel anything against their scarred skin. The custom of circumcision is from the Abrahamic religions (borrowed from the Egyptian priesthood) who admit to wanting to limit the pleasure of sex — to them, sex was for procreation only, not recreation. The practice of female genital cutting is equally barbaric.

I’ve written about circ several times on my blog ArousedWomanBlog.com because, as a woman who likes sex with men, male sexuality affects my sexuality. Knowledge truly is power.

Thanks so much for such a great article with so many sources. Great job!

Circumcision is a major alteration of the part of the male body that interacts directly with a woman’s body during sex. During intercourse with a natural man, the much of the direct contact between the male and female body involves the moving foreskin. For me, it is entirely credible that circumcision materially alters how women experience sex, and sadly, may also detract from that experience. Hence circumcision is a feminist issue, especially a sex positive feminist issue.

“70% of women have never orgasmed during sex…”
In my view, that is too high. The 1970s writings of Shere Hite and Nancy Friday suggest that roughly 25% of women orgasm rarely or never, 25% orgasm usually or always, and 50% of women orgasm erratically. This problem would vanish if women learned to combine masturbation and penetration, something my wife has done since her college years.

“…and I am one of those.”
Trish, I cannot believe your use of the present tense here!

“Many women endure painful sex due, in large part, to male partners who are circumcised…”
We badly need careful research on this very point.

Very curiously, Judaism and Islam are not anti-sex. Virginity has not exalted status in either of these religions, who expect men and women to marry and reproduce. The embryonic intactivist movement in Islam uses sex positive language. Jewish circumcision has begun to collide with Jewish progressive thinking about human sexuality.

The Victorian gentlemen who urged middle class parents to circumcise their boys, starting around 1870, did indeed have an anti-sexual agenda. In those days, male sexual desire was seen as the root cause of many personal and social evils. When this puritanical agenda faded, and when a daily shower became the norm, the desire of parents and doctors to circumcise boys faded in the English speaking countries — except in the USA. The signal difference is the refusal to lead by the American medical profession and American medical schools. Many intactivists are mothers without college degrees, facing a silent but arrogant medical profession.

“The practice of female genital cutting is equally barbaric.”
And feminists do not let us forget that. And any public policy that clearly antagonises feminists won’t fly nowadays. The trouble with intactivism is that the chattering class sees it as offensive to Jews and Moslems.. This is why Jewish and Moslem opposition to ritual circumcision deserve our most earnest support.

The female prepuce is the loose skin covering the glans of the clitoris. When women masturbate themselves, they often are playing with this prepuce. If you are thrilled by peeling back and recovering the glans clitoris, then you know more or less what intact men experience during masturbation and handjobs.

I read French and can confirm that everything I’ve read in French that is foreskin savvy was translated from American intactivist writing! And French men are all intact!

Before 1970 or so, many American women were ignorant of the clitoris. It was much written about in my teens, because it was assumed that millions of American women were ignorant about it. Most women have small clitorises, which forces women to pay careful attention to details. When I do foreplay on Mrs D, moving my fingers 2-3mm can make a big difference to her pleasure.

I am nor surprised that the rise of circumcision and then of anti-circumcision has caught most men out. Men are socialised in high school and university to adopt a jocular man of the world stance with respect to all matters sexual. This posture disguises a lot of ignorance. Young men are NOT socialised to truly understand sex. I learned a great deal from my wife, whom I met in my late 30s. I also read everything about sex I could get my hands on after my 13th birthday. I decided a few years ago that the best writing about the male experience of sex, and about how foreskin enhances vaginal intercourse, was by women. Gay men are also more foreskin savvy than str8 men.

Analogizing to my own experiences with an intact clitoris and clitoral hood, I can indeed very easily see how the movement of the foreskin over the penis provides immense pleasure. Sometimes I try to explain it to women in this way, but many women cannot handle frank sexual talk.

Two years have come and gone since Lillian wrote as she did aboe. To the best of my recollection, she is the only woman I have read saying this anywhere.

Let me remind readers that a very important step in my intactivist journey is my discovery of the writings of Betty Dodson. It’s not that I always agree with Betty. It’s not that intactivism is a primary concern of hers. It is her boldness and courage, to go with her mind and pen to where no woman or man has gone before — between her legs with her eyes wide open. Dodson’s talk of labia and clitoris helps me learn about the tender moving bits on the end of the penis that circumcision is hostile to. Lillian is walking a trail that Betty Dodson blazed.

I’m adding my two cents, my apologies for maintaining my anonymity, but the fact is that I’m commenting my rather private things here, and it’s something I’m not supposed to do in my community.

I can only describe my own experiences. I was circumcised when I was 32. At that point, I had 15 years of sexual experiences with women with intact foreskin, and now almost ten years without. I was lucky, as unlike many the operation was done by an excellent urologist, I had no complications and I healed well and fast.

Yes, the sensations are different, and they could be described as less intense. No, for me it hasn’t taken out any of the pleasure. To be honest, I think the lost sensitivity has made sex more enjoyable. The final sensations are pretty much comparable, but now I don’t have any rush to the climax. Effective masturbation techniques are quite different, but frankly, nothing one couldn’t figure out.

I’d say it’s not that big deal either way.

There’s no point exaggerating the effects. But I think circumcision should only be done when there are medical reasons for it, or when one decides to get it done for himself. As the operation is not risk free, it shouldn’t be done without a sound reason, and parents’ religion shouldn’t be considered as one.

I do not understand the introduction to your post and I hope that I am addressing a real person.

I’m happy that you — as a 32 year-old adult — were able to make your own decision. It’s also great that you have no devastating consequences. You have been granted your own choice, your human rights. I hope you continue to have a good experience.

However, yours is not the common case regarding circumcision — most males have strong consequences from male circumcision and many males have devastating outcome: these are not trivial and can shatter someone’s life. That a male cannot make his own choice is very bitter. The numerous number of circumcision mistakes should not be underestimated and the tragic results are not exaggerated. I know — personally.

The problem is that American medical and sexual science have yet to make an honest study of the possible long-term adverse effects of routine circumcision on adult sexual pleasure and functionality. Rest assured that not every circumcision has as good of an outcome as yours, which had a huge thing going in its favour: it was performed when you were fully adult.

Your post is also silent about a major topic: the satisfaction of women. There is a growing awareness that quite a few women prefer to be penetrated by an intact penis.

Anyway, my point in writing this was to show that the original purpose of circumcision was to reduce men’s sexuality. It is important for parents to understand this, as many of them seem to think that circumcision serves some grand purpose like health or tradition. Glad this man had a “good” result. He had the choice. Every man deserves the same, as he points out.

The proposition that circumcision dulls the sexual sensations of men is, regrettably, not yet a scientific slam dunk. E.g., the cutting community scoffs at Sorrells et al (2007). We badly need a careful study of a random sample of American and Canadian penises, numbering at least 10,000 and stratified by age, ethnicity and education. The spouses need to be interviewed as well. The subjects in this study will have to agree to have their penises carefully probed while they are erect. The cost of this study will be phenomenal, because the data collectors will have to be male doctors.

RE: The purpose of circumcision is to ruin male sexuality, by Lilli Cannon

The final comment in the thread makes a statement about the cost associated with an in depth study on the effects of circumcision. Has anyone reached out to medical professionals that would be willing to donate their time and talent to this cause?

I think one of the difficulties of funding such a study is that regardless of which side one it on, it is like funding a study to determine “do flowers grow on the dark side of the moon.” You spend a tremendous amount of money on something that everyone concerned is convinced their answer is already correct, and those who are not concerned don’t care.

Let’s presume a bit here. We do the study and we find out that men lose 80% of their penile sensitivity and women report that sex is not as enjoyable. Will that in any positive way change the pro-circ stand on the huge benefits of circumcision… cleanliness, reduction of STDs, less penile cancer, less cervical cancer etc etc? We already have a firm understanding that condom use will prevent these things yet they persist. I can’t for the life of me fathom how one can say “get circumcised it will help reduce STDs, but BTW you still have to use condoms 100% of the time.” So what the hell do these people care about some lost sensitivity in a penis?
Will it change the look like daddy crowd? Who stands around at family gatherings looking at schlongs? “Yep, look at that Gomco ring, a chip off the old block, son you make me proud”. Yet “OMG he won’t look like his father” is some kind of battle cry. Do intact men have this generational admiration for each other genitals. If not it might make the thanksgiving dinner a lot saner if everyone is not inclined to zip down their flies and have a look.

And let’s not even approach religion.

Going the other way, what if we find out from such a study that it makes absolutely no difference in sexual sensitivity or performance. Does that in any way negate the right of an individual to remain intact?

You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure out that losing 15 square inches of highly innervated tissue is going to cause a change in response. Is it critical? Well now that depends on how you define critical. Obviously circumcised men are able to have children. That’s all that matters in some people’s minds. For those of us who believe that there is more to life than the ability to reproduce and that an individual has a right to decide for himself whether the “benefits” out way the risks of circumcision, I think such studies are really not required.

What I would like to see is a reliable study that shows whether circumcised men have any worse marriages or psychiatric difficulties than intact men. I happen to very much believe that a good and frequent sex helps to defuse an awful lot of problems in a normal marriage.

It does not take a neurologist to figure out that my wounded penis is not performing to par. Fortunately my wife and I learned other methods to take the trip to Oz, but I can’t help but wonder, how many marriages suffer in silence and end in divorce. To me if the intactivists could show hard evidence with a good and reliable study that circumcised men have X percentage of failed marriages over intact men, then you have a statistic that people can care about.

The kind of study I have in mind would require a clinical examination of each of many thousands of male subjects, a careful sexual history of the subject, and a detailed interview of his spouse or domestic partner. The data collection could require as much as 3 hours per subject. Multiply that by many thousands of subjects, and you have a time commitment that is much too large to be donated.

“I can’t help but wonder, how many marriages suffer in silence and end in divorce. If the intactivists could show hard evidence with a good and reliable study that circumcised men have X percentage of failed marriages over intact men, then you have a statistic that people can care about.”
Trouble is, the sociological determinants of divorce are rich and varied. In the USA, divorce is lowest in New England, and increases with distance from New England. No one knows why. Divorce varies over time in major ways that are likewise not well understood. Divorce has risen dramatically in France and the UK, despite these being intact cultures.

The study Morton Frisch did in Denmark should be redone in Canada where there is a rich mix of circumcising and non-circumcising subcultures. The latter include Francophones, First Nations, and Ukrainians.

Great comment over at the Atlantic BTW.
I basically agree with you about the research. I would love to see it done. Not sure I want to participate in that one. Having a stranger applying various weights of fishing line in gentle caresses probably exceeds my abilities to sustain the required state. The results of such a study would be no doubt fascinating, the only thing I question is of what practical value the results would have in the circumcision argument. Penile sensitivity is not going to be much of an argument to people who can completely disregard the ethical rights of a child.

You are right about a study on divorce, it may be very difficult to separate the role of circumcision in the overall flood of reasons for divorce.

You said:

“In the USA, divorce is lowest in New England, and increases with distance from New England. No one knows why. ”

Alas, the same demographic for the incidence of non-circumcised men. Don’t let the pro-circs see that, they will use my argument against me.

Another area I would like to see research on is the biochemical aspects of coitus on men…sort of a Gordon Gallup study in reverse. Gallup ran the study that showed contact with semen reduced depression in women. I have been looking for additional data for women, and data for that the same effect in men.

For as much screeching I do about using condoms for the prevention of STDs, I have a theory that condoms are destructive to loving monogamous relationships. Circumcision may play a further role in my theory. My theory is this, sex is basically a chemical communication between lovers and it works by the exudation and absorption orally and genitally of hormones and neurotransmitters in Cowpers fluid, vaginal fluid, semen, female ejaculate (if it exists), blood, and saliva. Throw odors and pheromones into the mix as well. This exuded and absorbed chemistry works on the older unconscious emotional centers of the brain. We like to think of our cerebral cortex as us, the guy in control, but from what I am reading lately the conscious us is small part of the whole that operates behind the curtain. So I believe that when we have sex, our blood streams and brains become flooded with our partners chemistry, and that makes us feel real good and engenders bonding. So what happens when you block all that with a sheet of latex? Yes the guy in control realizes that he or she had sex. The other 95 percent of our brains experienced no sex, maybe some masturbation but no sex with a partner.

So when one is having a one night stand, a condom may actually help the parting of the ways in the morning. But when one is trying to fall in love and establish a monogamous long term relationship, using a condom as birth control might be like talking on a dead telephone line or writing a love letter with invisible ink. I believe this to be the case with both establishing a relationship and maintaining one. Condoms should only be used in non-monogamous sex, emergency contraception, or in those cases where a woman may have a sensitivity to BV or yeast infections, or a semen allergy.

So how does circumcision fit into my theory? Would the loss of 15 square inches of exudative and absorptive tissue negatively impact the efficacy of this chemical transfer into the man? What about the mucosa layers? Actually I can see two causes for the reduction in the efficacy 1) is the removal of these tissues reducing the area of absorptive tissue. 2) would the foreskin not tend to retain some of the post coital fluids after withdrawal maintain a wet environment on the interior of the foreskin for additional absorption? A circumcised penis by comparison will dry faster and lose the absorption. The foreskin may mimic, to a lesser degree, the vaginal retention of fluids and extend the absorption in the male after withdrawal.

My theory also postulates that men rolling over and falling asleep are denying themselves of some lovely chemical talk as well as well as denying their women pillow talk. I recommend getting into the scissors position–nice and comfy, plug in, and stick around for a while. There is a lot to be gained in lovers chats both above and below the waist line.

Roger, if you are up to an experiment, let me know. LOL. My thoughts on foreskins remains purely theoretical. I have no ability to obtain empirical data in my home laboratory. We could author a paper, Comparative Post Coital Wetting of The Glans of Circumcised and Intact Men. “With a sample size of two… ”

The whole difficulty with my theories is that they remain theories. My experiments are limited to one couple. Next life time when I am a software mogul, the Sextant Foundation will underwrite research in coital absorptions of natural love potion number 9s. In this life time I emailed Gallup and offered him $20 to study male absorption of coital fluids, I never heard anything back.

I gave the Atlantic my Best Shot, because of the quality of its readership. I also get rather annoyed at people who reveal that their are secular Jews but who still feel a compulsion to circumcise their sons.

The landmark paper Sorrells et al (2007) had only about 150 subjects, many recruited from San Francisco’s gay community (which strikes me as strongly anti-RIC). I believe that the data collection for that paper required a lot of donated effort, especially by Tina Kimmel, a nurse then doing a PhD. Kimmel is single, menopausal, and commited to a progressive outlook re homosexuality. She probably found it easier to retain her professional composure than most of us.

Penile sensitivity is not what I am most curious about, which is possible correlations between circumcision and PE and ED. I would also like data on the extent to which adult North American men have structural damage to the penis due to infant circumcision.

“In the USA, divorce is lowest in New England, and increases with distance from New England. No one knows why. ”

“Alas, the same demographic for the incidence of non-circumcised men.”

I beg to differ; the Empire of the Bald Penis is the midwest, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee. There is no research trying to explain this fact. Missouri and Minnesota are the only states in this area denying Medicaid coverage for RIC. Illinois has the lowest RIC rate in the midwest. Strandjord says that this is probably driven by the enormous post WWII demographic in Chicagoland. The only Third World immigrants interested in RIC are Moslems.

“…contact with semen reduced depression in women.”
If that is indeed a hard fact, the evolutionary basis is obvious, no? And how else to explain the enormous number of contemporary women who have been filmed with semen on their faces and bodies?

“I have a theory that condoms are destructive to loving monogamous relationships.”
They must be used with a good non-petroleum lubricant.

“…sex is basically a chemical communication between lovers and it works by the exudation and absorption orally and genitally of hormones and neurotransmitters in Cowpers fluid, vaginal fluid, semen, female ejaculate (if it exists), blood, and saliva.”
Well, my better half thinks very highly of Cowpers fluid!

“…the conscious us is small part of the whole that operates behind the curtain.”
That is neurologically defensible.

“The other 95% of our brains experienced no sex, maybe some masturbation but no sex with a partner.”
This would explain the endemic reluctance to use condoms. Condoms + no female orgasm = angry, resentful woman.

“…when one is trying to fall in love and establish a monogamous long term relationship, using a condom as birth control might be like talking on a dead telephone line or writing a love letter with invisible ink.” LOL!!!

A major reason why condoms persist is that quite a few women do not tolerate any other method of contraception.

If sexual bonding results in fair part from the reciprocal absorption of the others’ secretions via mucus membranes, then it is evident that circumcision is dysfunctional. Your scenarios (1) and (2) are worth exploring.

“The foreskin may mimic, to a lesser degree, the vaginal retention of fluids and extend the absorption in the male after withdrawal.” You know that I agree with George Wald’s hypothesis that the foreskin is a feminine detail placed in the most masculine place? Functionally (but not embryologically) it is the male labia. If your theory proves correct, that will powerfully validate Wald’s hypothesis.

My better half and I have sex in midday, when our children are out of the house. I revere afterplay, altho’ do not practice what I preach here, alas…

“With a sample size of two… ” LMAO!
That can be done, if the journal editor decides that the paper is an interesting “case report”! As you know, I have concluded that str8 men like myself know little about the penis, with or without foreskin. Women with contemporary mores can learn vastly more during the 10 years before they marry. The only evidence that I have bearing on my “typicality” is what my better says, when comparing me with her 20+ lovers during the 15 years before she met me. Basing myself on her say-so, I am not a bad data point.
My better half believes that men absorb estrogen from the women they have sex with, and that this estrogen is beneficial to health and psychological well-being.

An implication of your theories is that the fixation on oral sex detracts from well-being. This could explain why religious conservatives, who frown on marital couples deviating from vaginal intercourse, seem to have happier marriages. If there are Happy Chemicals in semen, the place most suited to absorb them into the blood stream is the place Mother Nature intended, namely the vaginal wall.

My wife and I met fairly late in life. But we had both reached the same conclusion: Mother Nature is a very skilled engineer. She takes an intense interest in reproduction. The fine details of the genitalia probably exist to further her purpose. This includes not only the sensitivity and motion of the healthy foreskin, but also the exchange of biochemicals via mucus membranes. It is too bad that introducing you to my spouse would be a very delicate matter.

I want to reply to your post in detail but will be tied up (not that way) for the evening. I would like to ask if don’t mind sharing, what is you occupation? You seem very adept at interpreting research. If I have asked you that before forgive me, I have a memory that has been blasted to hell and back by MS. My self I am a retired test engineer, but a sexuality hobbyist. No not with the red rooms of pain and chest full of whips and so forth, just extremely interested in vanilla heterosexuality and its role in long term loving relations.

Is it not a shame we have been reduced to a two inch column width? Although we should thank Lilly for providing us a nice little chat room.

Thank you Lilly. I realize the column width is because we picked up on a reply to a reply to a reply…. It is just shame that your long winded commenters are inserting several miles of 2 inch text to your post. Thanks for tolerating our comments. Unfortunately I am about to add another half mile this morning.

Roger
In reply to your reply.
The deal with the secular Jews is that it is an ethnic marker. People can be very secular but they still identify with their religion even if they think its hogwash. I am gutless when it comes to religious stuff and pretty much limit my commentary to non-religious–low hanging fruit.

Well Ms. Kimmel should be thanked for her efforts. With my MS I had an occupational therapist evaluate my fingers (and only fingers) probably in a similar fashion. It takes fine motor control, each stroke has to be identical to get uniform results. Any how excellent point on the PE, ED, and structural damage. I hadn’t thought of that. I am pretty sure that I have PE. We worked around it. Another data point to consider and it would be difficult to quantify, is trauma endurance for both partners. In the days of yore, when my wife and I would spend all day in bed, we both got sore. That didn’t happen on more modest sessions only the longer. My guess is that everyone would eventually get sore, but intact couples might go for a lot longer. Lot of variables there. But I still think that a trend could be compiled.

Regarding the geographical demographics, I will concur with your statement. I read that it was highest in NE and a pockets in mid West and lower in the west. I could not tell you where or when I read that or what era they were referring to.

“…contact with semen reduced depression in women.”
If that is indeed a hard fact, the evolutionary basis is obvious, no? ”

Absolutely. I think Gallup’s (BTW not the survey people) is fairly well regarded, with the usual complaints…only used college students, small sample size, and the usual complaints that it is a tool of the patriarchy…and so forth. Like all research into sexuality, the money is limited, and if it does not lead to fatalities there seems to be limited interest.
What pisses me off to no end is how much we have to distrust research any more. You can’t read of a single piece of research that doesn’t have flaws. Everyone finds research to support their theories, and those against find flaws. To be honest, I sympathize with parents trying to do what is right for their sons. You can find research to support any notion and find someone else to point out the flaws. We as society spend a ton of money and then find ourselves back to good old common sense, because you can’t trust research.

Myself I think there is a strong correlation between happiness in the sack and long term marriage, and I think it operates on a rather primitive level in our minds. I would probably have a hell of time proving it with the available research.

“And how else to explain the enormous number of contemporary women who have been filmed with semen on their faces and bodies?”

For the benefit of some of the younger or just obtuse readers brought up on a diet of pornography, never assume that a woman wants to wear your semen. Porn cum shots are for male viewing pleasure and the verification that the action is real–not female pleasure. My own understanding from what I have read, women vary in their response to external ejaculation, some find it exciting on certain areas of their bodies. Facials are almost universally despised because it is considered degrading. Also semen can be irritating to the eyes and any loose semen is a STD concern in non-monogamous relationships. Best to allow the woman to do the aiming and do NOT have expectations for what she should find hot. I will avoid getting into a rant, but sex is an act of love not degradation. Porn is not a sex ed. Anyhow by contact I meant vaginal. However, for those considering pregnancy, a woman’s prolonged oral or vaginal contact and swallowing semen for a period prior to conception and during pregnancy is thought to be a protection against pre-eclampsia. Yes Really!

I believe your wife has an appreciation for the finer things in life…which quite often are free! It is magical stuff and should never be wasted. I think of it as super glue. Apply it to a nipple or clitoris (either manually or with the convenient applicator) and rub it in…the oxytocin flow will bond her to you immediately. Here is a serendipitous discovery I made. I wasn’t experimenting just playing. One time I was attempting to digitally penetrate my wife in foreplay and she was dry. I had a droplet of Cowper’s handy. Using my finger, I applied it to the internal wall of her vagina. Instant response, she got completely wet rapidly. I have tried this several times since and it always works.
Now for my theory. The stated purpose of Cowper’s is to make the male urethra alkaline and some vague aid in lubrication for penetration. From my results (sample size one couple) I believe the purpose of Cowper’s is to act as a chemical signal to the vagina to lubricate. Now here is where confusion entered my thinking. Why have a chemical signal that is going to get wiped of externally? But I am circumcised. Would not the foreskin help to retain the Cowper’s until it was forced back by the vaginal wall on the initial penetration preserving the Cowper’s for internal contact? You know this is a lot like engineering! So there is another argument against circumcision although I am probably stretching it. With my huge sample size, we only know that my wife responds to vaginal contact with my Cowper’s.
Roger can I interest you in a experiment? You and your wife could double my data base. She has to be dry, and you have to get in on an internal wall, so care has to be taken not to lose it externally.

“This would explain the endemic reluctance to use condoms. Condoms + no female orgasm = angry, resentful woman.”
My wife used the pill but routinely had to go off it and then we used condoms. So my whole theory is based on, my wife and my reaction to condoms. Why do we dislike them so? For us it wasn’t none of the usual complaints, other than the required rapid withdrawal. We both actually enjoyed the installation. She did it and it was very erotic. She had orgasms, because I took her to the edge orally. Yet we despised condoms far worse than any of the complaints would justify. The sensitivity is not that bad. Actually we had a lot of fun with condoms, but we still despised them. And I believe in my heart it was because we both felt a lack of intimacy, yes we had sex but it was empty. It was an entirely different experience…like we were screwing rather than making love and we both felt it rather intensely.
I suppose there is an argument, is our feeling generated by a lack of chemical transfer directly affecting our pleasure centers, or is it simply psychological. Are we putting far to much weight on a mere condom. I think it is both quite actually.

“A major reason why condoms persist is that quite a few women do not tolerate any other method of contraception.”
I would think, don’t know for sure, that a diaphragm or cervical cap would be effective contraception but avoid the lack of wet sex contact that I think is essential to a loving relationship. Although some people don’t tolerant spermicidal compounds. Hormonal birth control and IUDs have their problems. I have read that hormonal BC can actually modify a woman’s tastes in men. Some women are finding that the guy she dated and married while on the pill no longer appeals to her when she goes off.

“You know that I agree with George Wald’s hypothesis that the foreskin is a feminine detail placed in the most masculine place? Functionally (but not embryologically) it is the male labia. If your theory proves correct, that will powerfully validate Wald’s hypothesis.”
I have to research George Wald, never heard of him.

“My better half and I have sex in midday, when our children are out of the house. I revere afterplay, altho’ do not practice what I preach here, alas…”
The song Afternoon Delight was no accident. Best time to make love is the day especially when the rugs rats are otherwise occupied. I used to take vacation days devoted to that purpose. After play and post coital plugged in time is one of those free things I mentioned. Few experiences in the world match post coital cuddling.

“Basing myself on her say-so, I am not a bad data point.”
It is good to be appreciated! My wife only had one guy, and he treated her like shit. Never inquired about his status, but it wouldn’t matter. A barbarian is a lout regardless of circumcision status.

“My better half believes that men absorb estrogen from the women they have sex with, and that this estrogen is beneficial to health and psychological well-being.”

I believe she is correct. I also believe that the estrogen tends to help men not stray. Semen has both testosterone and estrogen, and women absorb it. With a testosterone boost sex engenders more sex.

“An implication of your theories is that the fixation on oral sex detracts from well-being. This could explain why religious conservatives, who frown on marital couples deviating from vaginal intercourse, seem to have happier marriages. If there are Happy Chemicals in semen, the place most suited to absorb them into the blood stream is the place Mother Nature intended, namely the vaginal wall.”

I agree totally, but I think the opposite may be true for cunnilingus. From my own experience, I enjoy my wife’s orgasms during oral sex far more than my own. We both go off to Oz during one of her orgasms. I pretty much remain in Kansas during my orgasms. I think my brain is getting a rush of happy chemistry through oral absorption and probably odors and pheromones. Because I have been circumcised, I may not have a really good transfer during coitus.

“My wife and I met fairly late in life. But we had both reached the same conclusion: Mother Nature is a very skilled engineer. She takes an intense interest in reproduction. The fine details of the genitalia probably exist to further her purpose. This includes not only the sensitivity and motion of the healthy foreskin, but also the exchange of biochemicals via mucus membranes. It is too bad that introducing you to my spouse would be a very delicate matter.”

Human reproduction is an odd thing. I thoroughly believe that bonding is the prime purpose of human sex, and reproduction although the ultimate goal is actually on a back burner. Its good to have a man around to help raise the rug rats, and human sex seems to account for that. I have read that conception takes place on the average of 1 in 100. That is pretty inefficient in the animal world. We are designed to love each other first and then have a baby. It is one of the reasons I think condoms are terrible for monogamous couples in love.

Your wife sound like a wonderful, loving, and intelligent woman. Take good care of her Roger. Good spouses are a gift!

I would like to point out that the experience and result of someone circumcised as an adult and someone genitally mutilated as an infant are completely different. The infant penis is not yet developed and the foreskin is still adhered to the glans. The penis does not fully develop until puberty, the foreskin does not begin to retract for several years after birth and takes several years sometimes to completely retract. This progress is very variable from one individual to the next. It seems impossible to me to argue that the development of the penis is not affected by the absence of the foreskin from birth. Another factor is that the infant penis is so small that perceiving just how much of the foreskin is being cut off is impossible. Alternatively, as an adult the penis is fully developed and the foreskin is completely retractable and the whole organ is considerably larger and therefore much easier to work with making it much more possible to determine just how much might be reasonably removed without too much deleterious effect. As for your particular experience, you mention that you had 15 years of normal sexual intercourse, you learned what sex is supposed to be like and your brain no doubt is able to fill in for much of the lost sensation. The brain and body’s ability to fill in missing information once the body has been damaged is well documented. You learned what the proper response should be and so still experience it regardless of the fact that you are no longer actually sensing it. I believe it was Beethoven who continued to compose great music even after he went deaf, no? He could still hear the music in his mind even though his ears weren’t actually relaying the sound to his brain.

Mike, your comment is perhaps the finest foreskin-friendly comment I have read in my 15 years on the internet. You write very very well, and are at ease speaking of medicine and the human body.

You explain extremely well why all talk claiming that circumcision is most easily done at birth is arrant nonsense. When I was a young man, doing it at birth was rationalised in two ways: (1) babies do not experience pain like you and I do, and (2) the Jews have been doing it on the 8th day for 3-4000 years. If doing it at birth was a bad thing, “we’d know it by now.” It was only this century that an Israeli medical journal published an article about the high rate of UTIs in the weeks subsequent to a brit milah, UTI stemming from the fact that the wounded penis is wrapped up in a diaper. This problem had to have been much worse 100 or more years ago, when mohels did not know the need to sterilise their instruments.

Your remarks about Beethoven and his growing deaf in middle age are very very apt. It is literally true that at the world premiere of his 9th Symphony, he could not hear a note.

However, I think we skate on thin ice when we argue with men about their own experience. Those who were circumcised as adults and are happy with the result are only benefitting from exercising their rights over their own bodies. Many other men are not happy with their circumcisions, and since we cannot predict who will be happy or unhappy, we have no right to force it on children.

I was circumcised as a baby and am now 22 years old. I find that my penis would be bigger if I had not been cut, I cannot believe my parents were so stupid to cut a piece off my penis. I was not even cut for any particular reason, but simply to “fit in”. Circumcision ruins your sex life and affects you forever

Last century, almost nobody writing about sex understood the value of what circumcision cuts off. Until women began blogging their sex lives on the internet, nobody guessed that intact men could be more fun for women. Circumcision was first sold to urban upper middle class parents. Very quickly, having a bald penis was seen as part of “dressing for success.” The natural penis was seen as a body sign that a man was an immigrant, or the son thereof, or was born at home on a farm. A pointed dick was seen as a badge of social inferiority. Parents feared that natural boys would be bullied and humiliated in locker rooms and summer camps. That they would be rejected as dates.

Last century, mothers often did not like to talk to their sons about genital hygiene. That was simply too gross. Circumcision was seen as eliminating any need for parents to talk to a son about keeping his dick clean. Any need to teach a son to include in his bathing rituals an act that could lead him to discover masturbatory pleasure, deemed hopelessly immoral.

Before the internet, it was hard to find a photographic image of a natural penis, except in gay porn. Before 1990 or so, the models in Playgirl were seldom intact. The internet changed all that. Our time is the first where every young American woman can gaze on penises in the privacy of her college dorm room. And American women may be growing more tolerant of foreskin just as they have become more accepting of their own bodies.

Circumcision provides many benefits, to wit:
1. Circumcised men are better lovers. Because their is a slightly reduced amount of sensitivity in the penis, they are able to have intercourse longer and are able, therefore, to be better lovers.
2. Circumcised men are far less likely to suffer from premature ejaculation.
3. Circumcised men are more healthy: they are far less likely to carry the HP virus, since this virus thrives in the damp area under the foreskin. This is NOT a casual issue: HPV infections are precursors to vaginal cancer in women. My best friend lost his mother at age 12 to cancer of the uterus; his dad was NOT circumcised. BTW, if you don’t believe me, check out World Health Organization statistics. In Israel/Muslim countries where almost every man is circumcised, HPV infections among women is almost unknown. In countries (e.g., Japan) where almost nobody is circumcised, HPV infections among women is VERY HIGH.

I was circumcised as an adult because of continuing infections under the foreskin. I became weary from treating the infection and was circumcised at my doctor’s suggestion. Guess what? No more infections, and I must tell you, that because it takes longer for me to come to orgasm, I have far better, more exciting and better ejaculations than I did when I was uncut. Further, my lover likes it better because it takes me longer to ejaculate than it did before! She has more frequent orgasms than before, because it takes me longer to have an orgasm.

This entire issue is ridiculous. If you want to be a better lover, if you want to avoid HPV infections, get circumcised, NOW.

You were circumcised as an adult, by your choice. That is not controversial. But do not assume that other share your preference.

1. Circumcised men are better lovers.
ME. With how many American and Canadian women have your discussed this? I can make my spouse climax 3-4x before I come, and I am intact.
2. Circumcised men are far less likely to suffer from premature ejaculation.
ME. Research please. In my wife’s experience the contrary is true.
3. Circumcised men are more healthy: they are far less likely to carry the HPV virus, since this virus thrives in the damp area under the foreskin.
ME. Citations please. Do you know what the rate of cervical cancer is in Japan, Australia, Canada, USA, Scandinavia, rest of Europe??

1. Our experiences do not agree. I have discussed this point with a number of women via the internet, including with women who were married to one kind, got divorced, and then married a man of the other kind. One woman was first married to an intact man, and is now involved with a cut one. She revealed to me that intercourse with #1 was definitely better. Another first married a cut man, with whom sex never really worked. She then remarried an intact man, with whom passion works well. A Jewish woman intactivist has told me that her intactivism is partly grounded in a 3 month fling with a Latino while she was in college. Another Jewish woman commented that she is proudly and observantly Jewish, but she will not have sex with a circumcised man. Yet another woman has told me that her college sex life was a nightmare. It chaffed, burned, and she was nowhere close to an orgasm. Then near the end of her college days, she agreed to bed a Latino and the result was lovely, complete with powerful orgasms. I have read women say that when they were playing the field in their late teens and early 20s, they felt like the sex was marking time. They had chronic chaffing and Monday Blues. Then they met an intact man with whom sex was a powerfully bonding experience. He was the keeper! No more playing the field.

2. I agree with the first sentence. I emphatically deny that your second sentence follows from the first, even though I have read many American men jump to your conclusion. The penis-vagina system is more subtle that you allow, in ways that are poorly understood, in part because Master & Johnson were obtuse to the role of the mobile foreskin in vaginal intercourse, and to the great sensitivity of that which circumcision ablates. Intact men may come faster (we have no reliable data on this), but who cares if the partners of such men come faster because the intact penis is more thrilling? (Quite a few American women revealed this about themselves via the internet.)

3. Links, please. The WHO does no data collection. It is mainly a central repository for data collected by each country’s ministry of health. I do not trust the HPV data from countries whose GDP per capita is less than US$20K/year. At any rate, where circumcision is involved, I no longer fully trust the WHO, who have abdicated to the Harvard-Johns Hopkins-Illinois cabal.

The nerves in the foreskin do not just provide more of the same sensation found in the head of the penis. They have a different type of nerve altogether that is not found in the head of the penis, but which is found in the lips, fingertips and palms. During sex, the foreskin rolls over the corona, alternately covering and exposing the nerves that mediate the ejaculatory response. Because each circumcision removes a different amount of tissue (“high and tight” vs. “low and loose” circumcision styles) and every man is different, it is not so easy to say that “being circumcised makes a man last longer.” In studying this, I have heard of many dysfunctional responses to circumcision. Some men become numb and lose their erection altogether, some men become numb and stay hard but numb, some men become oversensitive and come too quickly, some men lack enough sensation and have to thrust harder and longer to achieve enough sensation to ejaculate.

At the same time, circumcision is neither necessary nor sufficient to achieve your proposed benefits like reduced HPV infections: circumcision is unnecessary because sexual infections can be prevented by using condoms and circumcision is insufficient because being circumcised does not prevent infection with STDs. The relatively high rate of STDs in mostly-circumcised American men attests to that.

Since it is not possible to predict the effect that circumcision will have on any individual man’s sexual response, and since the proposed benefits of circumcision can be had without surgery, it is unethical to circumcise infants. Again, I have no problem with you, an adult man, choosing to be circumcised. I would not make the same decision myself no matter how many infections I had, but at least you had the choice to make, and have only yourself to blame if you become unhappy with the results. All I want is for the men being born today to have the same choice. The fact that you are happy with your decision does not mean that it is ethical to amputate healthy, functional tissue from a minor, as he may not be happy with the result and may not have made the same choice for himself.

Thank you for sharing your experience. As concerned cynic responded, your medical claims are easily rebutted. What is more interesting is that you, as an adult, were able to decide that you chose to be circumcised, and are happy with the result. Circumcising infants removes their ability to choose, and so very few men will have any problems with their foreskins that is is absurd to circumcise many to prevent potential infections in a few (which can almost always be treated without amputation.) I am glad you had the choice, and though I personally would not choose to amputate any of my genitals despite having had several infections, your choice is not at issue. Actually, intactivists like me are quite happy that you were able to make your own decisions as an adult. Proselytize to adults all you want; you only help our case that babies should not be routinely circumcised.

All my life, I’ve heard women ruefully joke and complain about “bladder infections” “cystitis” etc etc. My wife used to keep cranberry juice in the fridge at all times! But who has ever heard of a woman desiring genital surgery in the belief that such surgery will reduce the incidence of these infections?

My better half also believes that after a weekend of passionate youthful sex, women are more prone to bladder infections if he is cut. Bladder infections are also the reason why diaphragms did not work for her.

I do not lean hard on this study because of its small sample size, and because I hesitate to assert that conclusions that hold for New Zealand women (a down to earth sensible lot in touch with their bodies) also hold for USA women.

You wish to alter the human body.. I propose to respect Mother Nature’s wishes. The burden of proof is on you to justify taking action on others. I do not not need academic evidence to justify doing nothing, which is the moral default.

You yourself are guilty of using anecdotes from your personal experience and from your marriage to make a point. For many aspects of human sexuality, such evidence, and evidence gathered from 10-15 years of reading internet forums, is the best we can do, because of the gaping holes in American sexual research, and the nonexistence of non-American sexual research concerning many topics. The prudish silence of American medicine forces us to rely on anecdotal evidence as the best there is. Australian doctors, based on decades of clinical experience, have come to believe that about 1% of circumcised babies grow up to have damage adult penises. This is deemed sufficient to strongly discourage RIC in Australia and New Zealand, and I concur.

If you are are a trained researcher and can get your hands on some grant money, I will gladly read what you write about your research, and trust you would do the same to may papers.

Your third sentence is totally true.
I amplify on your first two sentences by saying that we do not know the full story about the penis, how it interacts with the vagina, and how that interaction culminates in ejaculation. The subjects of Masters & Johnson were mostly circumcised, and they did not understand intact.
It is a raw fact that Europe is simply not a premature ejaculation hell. Is not filled with married women seething with frustration because their hubbies mostly come to soon. There is much more to this story than duller penis => longer intercourse => more female climax => happier marriage.

Here we have the age old trope of ‘this is my experience, it must be so for everybody else’. Hurray for you that as an adult you had the privilege of choosing for yourself to be circumcised. I wouldn’t even begin to conjecture as to why you in particular had such a problem with infections before you were circumcised, but literally hundreds of millions of men do not share your particular experience. There are in fact billions of men alive today with intact foreskins that have no complaints whatsoever and are not lining up to get circumcised. This reality in itself should put all arguments to rest, there simply is not a problem that needs to be remedied. Another reality about infant genital mutilation is that death is in fact a complication, although admittedly rare, it does occur and again this fact should put all arguments to rest. Whenever the risks outweigh the possible benefits to this extent the rational mind avoids the risk. Whenever I hear the pro cutting stance there is never any consideration given to the risks that are involved, they are many and range from the least, of unsightly scaring, to death, with misshapen penis, buried penis, removal of too much skin, considerable damage to and complete removal of the glans, and metal stenosis to name a few. Metal stenosis in fact almost only occurs with removal of the foreskin at birth. Ultimately this is a human rights issue.

A horrible ethical lapse of modern American medicine is its refusal to count the number of number of adult men, damaged urologically and sexually by their routine infant circumcisions. Also ominous is the silence of pediatric urologists. The closing sentences of Mike’s post make up a concise listing of some of the forms this damage can take.

Within the above essays it is mentioned that HIV would be reduced thru circumcision.That is probably true but the procedure which would be most effective would be the proliferation of the 15 minute self HIV test provided by Orasure Technologies but will not be approved by the FDA for “who knows why”.
Certainly if an amorous couple would both agree to this test on the spot (if it were available) unprotected sex would not take place and HIV probably would not be transferred. No one but no one will answer why such such a test is not allowed. I have written newspapers, WHO (organization), health departments, FDA, Clinton’s foundation, etc. but have received no reply. Oh yes! They all will encourage public health testing but The “amorous” couple will not get around to it, nor do they wish anyone else to know a positive result. So they rely on abstention and protection.

The experiences of men circumcised as adults do not shed light on the sexual damage that can result from infant circumcision. It is possible that the penis has to have been circumcised for a few decades before its sexual dulling becomes an evident drawback. This hypothesis would explain why most circumcised men do fine in their 20s and 30s (and have no trouble reproducing). ED and dull sex often don’t become problems until after the 40th birthday, a half century or so after the infant circumcision. If circumcision is delayed until the 20s, and is done only when the man gives informed consent to the procedure, the dulling of the penis from 40-50 years of exposure does not occur until a man is well and truly a senior citizen.

What I say here is not relevant to circumcision and premature ejaculation. PE is a possible complication of circumcision that may not require decades to become apparent. My better half’s sexual experience has been far more varied than mine, and included long term relationships with both cut and intact men. She has revealed to me that years before she met me, she dated 3 men with catastrophic PE — they came in less than 30 seconds. All were cut. I have noticed that sarcasm about PE is a staple of raunchy Jewish humour (Madeline Kahn, Joan Rivers, Sarah Silverman perhaps, etc.) That American medicine has made no good faith effort to track down a possible correlation between circumcision status and PE is an abdication of scientific and moral responsibility. We are very far from “first do no harm.”

I continue to be amazed at the arguments that circumcision reduces HIV, HPV, or other STDs. Exactly of what value is it? Take for instance the famous African studies that claim that circumcision “reduces HIV transmission by 60%” (which is widely refuted). For the sake of the argument, OK, let’s presume that there is a 60% reduction. So what? You can have unprotected sex 40% of the time? I don’t think so. What about the super bug gonorrhea? What about syphilis, chlamydia, hepatitis, herpes? Circumcision is going to protect one from all these diseases?

In my estimation making claims about circumcision offering any protection against STDs is dangerous. There are people in the world who hear those kind of arguments and it becomes a license for irresponsible behavior. If one is engaging in anything other than a monogamous relationship with absolute fidelity by both partners, one simply must use a condom…there is no ifs, ands or buts. Engaging in promiscuous behavior without a condom will sooner or later result in a person contracting a STD, circumcised or not, male or female.

Thank you! You have provided a terminology for an effect that I have personally witnessed in process engineering–just didn’t know what it was called. The more goof proof and automated we made a facility, the more relaxed the operators became.

I had to laugh when reading the article you suggested. I had almost wrote:

“In my estimation making claims about circumcision offering any protection against STDs is dangerous, as though having air bags in my car now justifies me driving faster.”

There was an interesting link in the article essentially stating that condom distribution programs in Africa did not work.

The biggest cause was that people did not use them all the time. Having a condom in your wallet does not prevent HIV transmission. Nor will wearing a condom protect one from other risky behaviors, for instance not using a dental dam during cunnilingus.

The misconception that unprotected fellatio was relatively safe has led to the genesis of the superbug gonorrhea, that is a strain of gonorrhea that resists current antibiotics. It turns out the the throat is an ideal breeding laboratory for gonorrhea because the symptoms, if any, resemble a typical minor throat irritation that is ignored like most throat irritations and gonorrhea is very receptive to adapting loose fragments of DNA that exist in the throat from other minor infections into its genome. So again unprotected sexual contact has generated problems for human beings.

So for the life of me I do not understand how anyone can justify using circumcision as a method of preventing STDs. If there is a reduction in HIV transfer, and I sincerely doubt that there is, of what value is it if it is not approaching 100%. Perhaps if it was absolutely the only thing that one could do, then there may be some justification at least to slow the rate down. The US HIV rate verses the European HIV rate would suggest that either circumcision does little or nothing to prevent HIV transfer, or that people in the US are far more promiscuous. The simple fact of the matter is that circumcision probably does very little to provide any protection against STDs, and circumcising may through risk compensation encourage reckless behavior. Safe responsible sexual behavior and monogamy are very effective.

I think people need it beat into their heads, a condom every time, not most of the time, or its OK not to use one just this once. And monogamy is absolute monogamy. Sex is alway going to be a remarkable vector for disease. Its wet, its warm, it is very intimate, and its fun so we do it lot. If we persist in doing it with a variety of partners and use no protection circumcision is not going save us.

“There are people in the world for whom those kind of arguments become a license for irresponsible behavior.”

This is exactly what is going on in Africa as we write. A Kenyan told David Gisselquist “if I still have to use a condom, why this circumcision business?”

A huge problem with the African clinical trials is that they were stopped after 12-18 months. Hence we will never know whether risk compensation applies here. Risk compensation in this context means circumcised men engaging in more unprotected sex, so that after 5-15 years, their rate of HIV positivity is at least as high as that of intact men. We also know nothing about whether the willingness to use condoms varies by circ status. It is possible that circed men are more resistant to condom use, in which case circumcision is totally counterproductive in the long run.

The academic who discovered risk compensation, Sam Peltzman, did so when he discovered that the shift to lap bets and shoulder harnesses lowered in-car highway fatalities, but raised the number of pedestrians hit and killed by moving vehicles. Hence your invoking car airbags was apt.

My understanding also with the African trials was that there was not sufficient correction for the time out of sexual behavior while the circumcisions healed, and that the circumcised group received instruction on safe sex which the control group did not receive. I can’t vouch for the validity of those arguments but I have read them.

Then you have the issue like you mentioned that the study was stopped early, purportedly for humanitarian reasons. Yet as you indicate, we will never know the long range results. My feeling is that IF, and that is a very big IF, circumcision does attenuate HIV transfer then simply by waiting a few years the circumcised group will still catch up to the control group. So in the end what have you achieved? Allowed reckless behavior to run a longer course and spread other STDs in the process. (Sort of the seat belts saved passengers but was deadly to the pedestrians effect.) Stopping that study early may have had exactly the opposite effect, it perpetuated a dangerous belief.

One of the problems with a highly politicized arguments is the question, how good is the data. Both sides can argue that the other side’s data is flawed. While that may make for lively and entertaining debate, it does nothing for solving the problem of the debate. I am no expert in statistical analysis, ergo I have to rely on the conclusion of the experts. The African study has enough problems that I think we can safely rule it out. Yet it keeps on reappearing in pro-circ arguments. That is why I have taken the stance with the pro-circs, fine, I will give your 60%, so what? Frankly I don’t care if it is 20% or 80%, what difference does it make. Explain how that makes life any different. If one wishes to remain disease free, one must use a condom, regardless of what the percentage of reduction is. If sex was a one time deal perhaps an argument could be made in favor of circumcision, but it is not. So run with the 60% all you want but even those who play Russian Roulette only do so with one chamber loaded not two.

Again thank you Roger for introducing me to the concept of risk compensation.

I do not know if Boyle and Hill can or will reply to this comment on their work.

3 of the 9 coauthors are well-known usual suspects: Morris, Bailey, and Morris’s mate Jake Waskett. Waskett polices all Wikipedia entries bearing on the penis, foreskin, and circumcision, and removes all content he does not like (I do not agree with intactivists who argue that the outcome is a badly biased Wikipedia). Waskett is a British man who had himself circumcised in his 20s, likes the outcome, and has advocated for circumcision ever since, including the “right” of parents to have their infant sons cut. He has coauthored several academic articles with Brian Morris. What is queer about this is that Waskett is an IT engineer with no qualifications in human biology or public health. Since when do medical school profs coauthor papers about the penis, a subject where one must be careful to maintain credibility, with a fellow who has an undergrad engineering degree? I have see threads where American women have argued heatedly with Waskett. He does not understand how young women think about sex and child rearing, because he is gay. One day, an American gay man who misses his foreskin will take Waskett to the proverbial cleaners. Best of all, it should be Alan Cumming!

The vision of scientific enquiry Morris and Waskett practice and preach is a scarily authoritarian one. They simply do not understand that when studying a complex system like a human being, embedded in complex society, a lot of judgement calls have to be made. There necessarily are a lot of explicit and silent assumptions. (I was taught to call such assumptions, required to conduct any empirical study, “maintained hypotheses”.) Good science in such circumstances is very much a matter of art and judgement. And coming to grips with circumcision in the USA requires social science, not bench science, methods. Shweder sees this, albeit imperfectly. But positivist philistines like Morris, Waskett and the Johns Hopkins set, who pound the table on and on about “evidence based” this and that, do not.

Thanks for sharing that report. It is rather scathing rebuttal to these poorly performed clinical trials. What is disconcerting about this is the degree that to which these trials are promoted as proof positive that circumcision is effective in reduction in HIV transfer. I knew of course that the 60% improvement was a manipulation of statistics, but this report removes all doubt about the unreliability of these studies. Jesse Bering in his tiff with Andrew Sullivan on Scientific American stated this:

“This anti-HIV effect is dramatic; it is at least on the magnitude of a 60 percent reduction in this demographic. Most of this research was conducted with African populations, but not exclusively so, nor has every study been equally incontrovertible.”

Bering and others are promoting a very shabby piece of research. I would like to think they do so innocently, but when you read the histrionics that Bering employs in his post, I think that Bering’s title (Hey Andrew Sullivan, Stop Calling My Penis Mutilated) tells the real story. Bering calls intactivists “science denialists” but when one reads the science for Bering’s 60%, it proves to be a compliment.

I am in Facebook. Feel free to continue our dialog there.
If you don’t do Facebook, Lilly has my Email address.

Are you aware that there is a nontrivial international community devoted to stopping routine infant circumcision in the USA? And that that community is mostly female? And that opposing circumcision is ramping up the sexual sophistication of a lot of women? One of the toughest of these women lives in Pennsylvania.

Any uncircumcised guy will tell you that the ‘frenulum at muco-cutaneous junction’ (number 14 on the diagram) is the most sensitive area on his penis. It’s essentially a ball of nerve endings, all packed into one small space. When I’m with my partner (or alone), this is the area I want her to concentrate on. It seems like this is the male equivalent of the clitoris. Having this part touched results in amazing orgasms. Unfortunately for circumcised guys, that’s the part that’s been hacked off.

Your comment is a good example of what I mean when I write that I, an intact man in early old age, have learned a lot about sex and intactness, from reading the views of others communicated to me via social media.
The findings of Sorrells et al (2007) were new news to me. NOTHING in American sex ed or erotica prepared me for what they reported. I am told, BTW, we owe much of that study’s carefulness and attention detail to the mind and diligence of Ms Tina Kimmel, a single woman of advancing years, and a Jew. James Loewen interviewed her, and excerpts from that interview appear on his YT channel.

Well consider this: the joys of male sex are so limited regardless. It is not like uncircumcised men have multiple orgasms. And their single orgasms last half as long as a woman’s. The one benefit of circumcision is that men realize even more greatly how pathetic the male sexual response is and provide alternative stimulation to their female lovers who are the equivalents of goddesses riding a high plateau with no fear of “premature” orgasms, then riding again without stopping. They leave me with a sense of awe. Having my foreskin back might feel a bit better but never feel like _that_!

Sir, I am intact and have been married 24 years.
Before meeting me, my wife had a number of relationships with both kinds of men. Her two conclusions:
* When a cut man in his 20s or 30s ejaculates, he is finished for the evening. When a young intact man ejaculates, he not infrequently can continue. I am no longer one of those lucky men. While I have foreskin, I cannot climax more than once per sex session;
* She encountered several men who had catastrophic PE, in that they came in at most 30 seconds. These tragic cases were all cut.

Now my two cents.
It is true that intact men have no particular skill at multiple orgasms or at prolonging orgasm.
But sex is about the entire journey, not just the destination. Being intact facilitates female on male foreplay, starting with the good old handjob and stroking the frenulum. Foreskin motion makes penetrative sex less brutal and frantic (the style of intercourse depicted in USA video porn strikes me as brutal, unloving and silly. I get plenty of pleasure despite going at it much slower until the last minute or so.)

When I go in and out of my missus, I no longer feel much in the glans — the years take their toll even on us intact dudes. But I still get good sensations from the inner foreskin and the ridged band sitting behind the rim. If I were not intact, I fear that sex would be frightfully boring, and that I would not be able to ejaculate by vaginal intercourse alone. The sexual difficulties of older men are unthinkingly attributed to aging alone, and they get a script for Viagra. I hope to go to my grave never having taken Viagra once.

Finally, I urge you to read the views of women who have had long term relationships with both kinds of men. They can be very revealing of how foreskin and foreskin motion make her sexual experience better. That alone is a strong reason not to circumcise, and may explain why so many American women are determined intactivists. I agree with those who argue that circumcision is a feminist issue, simply because circ detracts from the female sexual experience, which can be a fragile affair. Many married women do not orgasm reliably.

I agree with your thoughts on Viagra. I am at the age where reliability has become an issue. My thoughts on it, if it doesn’t work right now, take a nap and try again, or try tomorrow.

What I worry about Viagra and the other such meds is that one gets reliant on these medications and then some other health problem arises and they force you off the Viagra. Will natural erection ever come back? I would much rather have a natural, even if somewhat unreliable penis, than a chemically induced ramrod that I could lose forever to the next old age heath crises.

You can actually have a hell of good time in bed with no erection or orgasm. Nude massage and cuddling are wonderful and the skills of my tongue atone for the short comings of my penis–always have. If things rise to the occasion, lovely, if not still lovely. I don’t define my sexuality by erection and ejaculation any longer. Its nice when it happens but is not a requirement. Intimacy and love with your partner is what is important, not some macho requirement for ejaculation.

Performance anxieties are a young people’s sport. Us oldsters are running too short on time to be afflicted with such nonsense. Get naked, get in bed, enjoy supremely what ever may come. What don’t come, worry not. People don’t give up eating because them become diabetic, nor should they give up sex because of unreliable erections and orgasms. As you said, the journey is the joy. Orgasm is icing on the cake.

The one thing that I would recommend to men, especially younger men that are having trouble with E.D., before going to Viagra, try improving your diet, exercise, and practice…practice…practice, preferably with a partner but alone if necessary. Sex is one of the few arenas where we demand perfection from ourselves once in a blue moon. That may work in your 20s and 30s but when you get to 50, I think practice is in order. We tend to fall back on medications far too easily as a society. Its wonderful if you need it, but I would recommend try other approaches first.

If a woman is not trying to get pregnant, she should choose a skilled tongue over a penis any day. Intercourse is not woman worship; cunnilingus is.

If an intact man does not have abuse drugs or alcohol, and is not diabetic, I don’t see how he can remain soft for more than 30 seconds after she starts to tease his johnson with her lips and mouth. If she knows how to pump his penis skin. Many American women who’ve been with both agree that intact takes the good ol’ handjob to a higher dimension. Upon being told by Marilyn Milos that nearly all adult American men are circumcised, European middle age married women have interjected “then how do American couples have foreplay?” The answer is: the Great American Blowjob, which requires that a woman suppress her native squeamishness. I will go to my grave not understanding why women seem to enjoy giving oral.
Meanwhile, almost all women can easily learn to pump the skin on an intact penis. And enjoy it.

I agree with your analysis of the differences between male and female sexual response, women are truly sexual olympians and men barely make it into little league when it comes to the art of orgasm. My orgasms are paltry little affairs putt, putt, putt and I am done, meanwhile my wife flies off to Oz then circles the rings of Saturn a half dozen times, pounds the mattress with her fists, and sings several arias. Ahhhh to experience such a thing! I have always wanted an out of body experience…into my wife’s body and experience one of her orgasms.

I read one time that sex is God’s joke on mankind. I believe it.

There was also a joke about little Adam and little Eve in God’s presence when gender attributes were being handed out.
God: Who wants to be big and strong?
Adam: Me, me. I want to be big and strong.
God: OK Adam gets to be big and strong. Eve will be smaller and weaker. Who want to have a beard?
Adam: Me, me. I want to have a beard.
God: OK Adam gets the beard, and Eve gets a smooth face.
On and on this goes. God presents an attribute and Adam jumps up and claims it before Eve says anything.
God: OK last question. Who wants to stand up to pee?
Adam: Me me. I want to stand up to pee.
God: OK Adam gets to stand up to pee, and Eve gets multiple orgasm.

There is no doubt about it men got the poopy end of the stick regarding orgasm. BUT, if you think that is unfair, then consider pregnancy and child birth. It tends to put it all in perspective, indeed a joke on mankind and womankind.

Things are not as terrible as you suggest though for us boys. True our orgasms leave a lot to be desired, but in true male fashion, we can enjoy the fruits of our wives labors if we just open ourselves to the experience. My comments below are limited to absolute monogamous long term relationships. I have found over the years (I have been in a faithful sexual relationship with my wife for 38 years) that I enjoy my wife’s orgasms far more than my own. I have come to believe that most of the communication that goes on in sex is of a chemical nature and it runs in the subroutines in our subconscious. Don’t forget sex has been around for hundreds of millions of years. Human intelligence and verbal communication a tiny sliver of that. So what we think of as consciousness, the real experience, reality…is actually a tiny fragment of our total experience. Don’t think so? Consciously tell yourself to have an orgasm. Some people can do that but it is a rare talent. So all there is this rich world of experience that runs independently of our cerebral cortex.
As much as I scream and carry-on about the use of condoms, I think they are damaging to a monogamous (absolute) relationship. So if you are in a monogamous relationship and use condoms for birth control, find another method. I think you both find a world of difference.
I am convinced that sex involves much exudation and absorption of bio-chemistry that appeals to the ancient parts of our brains, and throwing a sheet of rubber in between you and your lover defeats that chemistry. So after sex your cerebral cortex says that was wonderful, but the rest of your brain is thinking, sex what sex? All we experienced was some masturbation. So a good bit of your brain has not been fulfilled. So here are some suggestions to better enjoy your lover’s orgasms (again monogamous with absolute fidelity by both partners).
1. Don’t use condoms for birth control.
2. Be especially attuned to her orgasm, forget about yours. Try to make hers the best you can. The better her orgasm, the more chemistry she is going to exude and you are going to absorb all that free of charge.
3. After coitus, while you are still erect, get into the “scissors position” penetrate her and have some nice pillow talk. It is my belief that while you are chatting, so are your genitals chemically. Stick around and enjoy all that free love potion number 9. The scissors position is good because it is comfortable for both partners. Yes, you will go soft, but you will still be in close proximity. You can drift off to sleep like this, it is wonderful. She will love it too. Women want to be loved and appreciated after sex.
4. Make cunnilingus an art form. It is not just a form of foreplay, but an act that should be taken to its logical end. You have far more control over her with your tongue than your penis. Play her like a violin or cello in a concerto…take her to the edge and back off. Tease her back and forth but always drawing a bit closer to a thunderous conclusion. Like Roger said above, don’t concentrate on the end, enjoy the journey to the fullest. Cunnilingus is not simply pleasuring her, it is pleasuring both of you, and you can take both of you to places that your penis just does not have the skill or patience to do. Defer orgasm for as long as you can, out to the edge and back, out to the edge and back, then like a conductor leading his orchestra in the final movement of Mahler’s Symphony # 2, The Resurrection, take her the whole way and hang on for your life. It is a force of nature. While she is flying off to Oz you are drinking in her essence, breath deep, and draw all those pheromones, chemistry, and energy into your being. That my friend satisfies me far more than those paltry little putts that I do. I ride off to the edge of the universe on my wife’s orgasms.

When she is done, again be in no hurry to leave, nuzzle her and drink her in, give thanks to her, the goddess, and to God that you had the great fortune to be the conductor of the greatest symphony known to man. Truly a blessing.

There is some controversy over this book. In fact it gets a bit silly in places, and I think Wolf may have overstated her case, but from a man’s perspective of wanting to pleasure his woman, the book is worth its weight in gold.

She Comes First, A Thinking Mans Guide to Pleasuring a Woman by Ian Kerner.

Kerner gets a little overboard on his techniques, but his philosophy on pleasuring a woman should be taught in high school, with a mandatory refresher every five years!

I can’t prove any of this, of course, it is all theoretical, mostly based on my wife and my experiences with condoms during our marriage. There has been some research by Gordon Gallup of SUNY, but little otherwise that I have been able to find. Next life time when I come back as a multi-billionair software mogul, I intend to fund research in the chemistry of sex, for now I must dream on. Perhaps it is nothing more than a placebo, if so give me more!

My belief is that the chemistry of sex is truly magical, it attracts us like perfume, bonds us like glue, and lubricates a relationship like an expensive highly refined oil. And it free! They don’t even tax it.

If I am correct, then circumcision is yet again another cruelty to the monogamous couple in love. The foreskin protects the glans and prevents it from being kerantinized. The foreskin contains a mucuosa layer. My belief is that both the glans and this mucuosa layer are areas of exudation and absorption of the bio-chemistry of sex. Circumcision destroys the mucuosa layer, and reduces the ability of glans for chemical communication. Further it is my belief that Cowper’s fluid (pre-cum) is a chemical signal to the vagina walls that penetration is taking place and that lubrication is in order. Another role of the foreskin may be to retain the Cowper’s on the glans until the foreskin is retracted on intromission thus depositing the Cowpers on the internal wall of the vagina. My Cowper’s is uselessly wiped off by pubic hair and the major labia. For all you gentleman out their, try this experiment. When your lover is a bit dry, carefully apply a dab of pre-cum on her internal vagina wall. Its a little tricky, you have to use one hand to allow access and the other to apply it to the wall. My findings was an immediate and complete lubrication. However, I am working with a sample size of one couple. I am sure the pro-circs would find my data flawed.

If my level of detail has been TMI or some find this too explicit, I apologize. Lilli does warn in her Welcome that she discusses sex frankly, and I took it to heart. Much of why we circumcise infants in our society is that people have refused to discuss sex in a mature fashion. Non-religious circumcision is the direct result of finding sex difficult to discuss, not polite, immoral, or dirty. None of that is true. But again I apologize to those who many find this comment too explicit.

Sextant, I suspect that you are the most sexually sophisticated male I have ever read. And that is the case even though you are circumcised. You put the entire USA medical profession to shame. American “sex experts” “pediatric urologists” “public health profs” are, by comparison to you, scientifically incompetent. Emperors with their noses in the air, and without clothes.

I attended wild weekend parties in college, where there were girls cute to look at who said racy titillating things with a smile. When the beer firmly reminded me that it was rented, not owned, I discovered, when pulling my foreskin back in the john, that I was all gooey with precum. I immediately appreciated that this was a sexy detail that the sea of cut guys around me could not appreciate; their precum was wicked away by their shorts. I also appreciated that that precum was intended to make insertion easier for me and more pleasant for her. It was not until 45 years later that I encountered Sextant, who enlightened me as to the pheromonal purpose of pre-ejaculate.

I had a strong sense as a young man that we humans had a lot to learn about sex and pleasure. One fact made that obvious: I was intact, and the value of intactness for the pleasure of one or both genders was passed over in silence. But if Sextant is right, the shortcomings in American sexual understanding are bigger than that. For instance, I wonder if Sextant has not hypothesized a deep reason why couples shy away from condoms.

” meanwhile my wife flies off to Oz then circles the rings of Saturn a half dozen times, pounds the mattress with her fists, and sings several arias.”
Lucky you!! My wife’s orgasms are never in that category.

One thing I forgot to mention in my dissertation is that many women are in-orgasmic or very slow to orgasm and many men do not have the where-with-all to take them to orgasm, and many couples live in silence on the issue.

This seemed to be a big problem in my parents generation, the wifely duty. With the sexual revolution and Masters and Johnson, women were recognized as sexual beings (at last) and it become a matter of pride for a man to bring his woman to orgasm.

From what I have read, this desire to please a woman seems to be lost on the younger generation of men who have been educated by on-line porn to believe that women get off by being on the receiving end of facials…a pretty much standard ending for porn. It is a ridiculous and demeaning assumption.

As a precocious teen in the 1960s, I read in Time magazine and the like that many married American women orgasmed erratically or not at all, and that the problem was that most women could orgasm only via the clitoris, and that many adult Americans did not understand the sexual importance of the clitoris. When I was in high school and college, more than once I had to explain to a male peer what the clitoris does, and that cunnilingus was the surest way for a man to please that organ.

I warmly agree that there is little evidence in present day video porn, or in social media chatter, that men under 40 nowadays understand the importance of the clitoris.

Missus D climaxes every time, but only because she strokes her clitoris while I penetrate her. I wonder how many women 18-40 understand this road to sure orgasms?

Women seem to be aware of the truth. I have noticed that more and more women who pose explicitly exhibit the clitoris with pride. This was deemed utterly pornographic in my long ago midwestern youth.

First – Women are NOT “slow” to orgasm. Are we being timed? Judged? Is this a competition?

The orgasmic response in women is almost instantaneous ONCE the woman is properly aroused. There are physical requirements that MUST be met for a woman’s vagina to be ready to accept an object (penis or toy). Without meeting these physiological requirements — which take 15 to 30 minutes of pre-penetration stimulation of nipples, clit, female prostate, skin, etc. — not only is orgasm not gonna happen, but sex itself can be very painful for the woman.

Second — Yes, women DO know to work their clit — the clit is the only thing that gets talked about in magazines, with the exception of the misnamed G-Spot. The truth is 70% of women have never orgasmed during penetrative sex. This is because men get an erection and want inside immediately — but the women is not physiologically ready for orgasm, but takes him inside anyway. The average time a man lasts until ejaculation is only 2 minutes. So, to recap, it takes 15-30 minutes for a woman to get aroused so she can orgasm, but the man only lasts an average of 2 minutes…. thanks to circumcision, no doubt.

The reason why older women may not want to stimulate their own clit during partnered sex is probably due to cultural and/or religious hogwash that shamed the body — women bodies, in particular. If the woman was brought up in a religious household, she may also be adverse to masturbation, which is the best way of learning how your body responds to stimulation and how to reach orgasm.

The clit is not the only key to woman’s orgasm. The female prostate — on the anterior wall of the vagina — is absolutely amazing once she’s awakened. The prostate is the other half of “blended orgasms.”

I could say a lot more, but it doesn’t look as if anyone here is interested.

In this thread, women are repeatedly being stereotyped or horribly maligned. As a woman, I would appreciate men educating themselves rather than perpetuating porn-myths and non-scientific statements about women and our orgasmic response.

Trish, I know who you are and have read your blog. I have praised in social media your writings critiquing the American obsession with making every penis bald 24/7. In this respect you have linked arms with Gloria Glickstein Brame and Betty Dodson. I have seen the Great Cyberwhore herself, Nina Hartley, praise foreskin in one of her videos. You’re in good company.

I am a baby boomer on the brink of retirement. In my youth, young unmarried women felt very awkward about sex. But they would let a man engage in foreplay, thinking that conventional morality banned only the penetration of the vagina. A predictable result was that young women often got a lot of foreplay. Foreplay included cunnilingus, much lingered over in the lewd talk of my high school and college years. Her reluctance forced him to take his time. The result was that when penetration happened, she was hot indeed.

But we lewd boys did NOT talk about the clit. I was disappointed.

“The truth is 70% of women have never orgasmed during penetrative sex.”
I read it was 25%, with 50% of women having occasional orgasms. If it really is 70% nowadays for women under 40%, I conclude that American men are Epic Failures in the bedroom.

“This is because men get an erection and want inside immediately…”
It doesn’t have to be her vagina. Inside her lips and mouth is fine for most of us men. And if he’s uncut, her giving a handjob can be quite satisfying.

“… but the women is not physiologically ready for orgasm, but takes him inside anyway.”
If this happens, she should put a halt to things, open her bedside drawer, and reach for the KY.

I was warned off this selfish male behaviour in the 1960s!!!! We were socialised back then to “feel her up”, and if “her pussy wasn’t wet”, you weren’t supposed to “drive the old log in”. I argue that pushing an intact penis into a dry vagina can be quite painful for him. Mother Nature forces us to have better manners…

“The average time a man lasts until ejaculation is only 2 minutes.”
2 minutes is certifiable PE territory., and is flatly wrong for me. I can often hold out until she’s come 3x.
I suspect that circumcision makes PE more common and more severe, with many circed men doing fine.
I have read many times over the decades the claim that circed men “last longer”, with the silent assumption that men who last longer are more fun for her. The American sexual establishment ain’t ready for the possibility that his having foreskin makes her come more quickly and more enthusiastically. A number of American women who’ve been with both have used social media to testify to the latter.

Trish,
Interesting comment and I agree with everything you said up to the last three paragraphs. I can’t speak for everyone, only myself based on my own experience which for the past 38 years has been only with my wife. I had limited sexual experience prior to that, most conducted under the influence of alcohol. I am very interested in sex and do read quite a bit about it but no I am not a trained expert in sex.

Inorgasmic, slow to orgasm, indeed poor choice of words and I generalized. I do not time these things and from my personal point of view the longer the better. I am in no hurry. Nor do I judge. I will agree that I treated the subject with a poor choice of words and gave none of the rich detail that you provided. However competitions, stop watches, and judgements were not implied in my comment.

To your preparatory list I would add whole body non-sexual touching, caressing, kissing, and massage. I would estimate this takes about an hour before any sexual touching, the sexual touching lasts about another hour, coitus is relatively short due to my PE but I use cunnilingus to take her to the edge before I penetrate her ergo she most always has an orgasm from coitus, if she doesn’t then I will take her the rest of the way with cunnilingus. Post coital, we generally assume the scissors position and cuddle. Often this is followed up with additional cunnilingus and back in my younger days additional coitus. I am 64 and things are not quite as operational as they were yesteryear. I would estimate that altogether we spend about 3 hours making love, but who is timing it?

Back in the 70s when it was determined that the clitoris was the only site of orgasm, my wife refuted that claim from her own experience. She could have surface clitoral orgasms, deep vaginal orgasms, or as you say a blended deep and surface. It since has been found that the clitoris is a far more complex organ than the bud that is talked about in the magazines. There is a root which extends to the so called G-spot, the crura, and bulbs. Why such complexity escaped the notice of anatomists is beyond me. As you mentioned, the anterior wall of the vagina is another area associated with deep orgasm and there is some thought that the anterior fornix, the deepest pocket of the vagina, and in some women the cervix may be sensitive to stimulation. I have read that women have a great deal of variability in pelvic and vaginal innervation. As such, a woman will experience orgasmic responses where the connections exist if those structures are stimulated.

My wife can experience orgasm from nipple stimulation and again under the category of TMI, we enjoy rubbing Cowper’s fluid into her nipples with my glans which will bring her to orgasm very quickly if the activity is extended beyond a minute or so. Imagine the fun we could have with that particular activity if I was intact, alas!

Regarding the religious hogwash, I was subject to that myself. I have a one way ticket to hell for impure thoughts, self abuse, premarital sex, relations during her period and what one person told me was oral sodomy and against God’s will (a description I tend to disagree with because I keep my navigations well ventral of the south pole)–none of which I seek redemption for. So be it, I look forward to the trip. But yes I rather imagine that many couples suffer unnecessary shame and misunderstandings from as you say religious hogwash. My wife is quite religious, but she has stated that any thing that feels as good as sex has to be the work of God not the devil and religions need to get the hell out of the bedroom. Myself, I am vaguely Christian, well I like Christmas trees, very spiritual, but not religious at all. I don’t believe in hell.

Thus far I think you and I have a great deal of agreement. I did a poor job of stating it. I found nothing in your statements that I disagree with or refute. I am sure you are far more knowledgeable than I am, but you said nothing here that I did not already know although I am not near as handy with the statistics.

But then you said, “I could say a lot more, but it doesn’t look as if anyone here is interested.” I can’t speak for anyone else but I believe that is patently untrue regarding myself.

Then you said “In this thread, women are repeatedly being stereotyped or horribly maligned.” Again I can’t speak for the entire thread, it is quite a long one, but I deny that I have said anything that stereotyped or maligned women.

Then you said “As a woman, I would appreciate men educating themselves rather than perpetuating porn-myths and non-scientific statements about women and our orgasmic response.”

I think I probably have a better than average understanding of women’s orgasmic response. I admit that I did a poor job of delineating that understanding and for that I will apologize. I am not a scientist but a interested lay person. To say my comments are scientific or not is unfounded unless I am directly quoting scientific research. I do have quite a few non-scientific speculation regarding the bio-chemistry of sex. I have never pass those off as anything but speculations on my part and something that I would like to see far more research on.

I emphatically do not perpetuate porn myths and in fact find the stupidity that is pushed off in porn to be most unfortunate for both women and men.

If I have stated any thing in these posts on this site or others that would qualify in the charges here, I do apologize.

This is nice to read but still a minority knowledge. Don’t know if you mentioned it, but Kellogg also put out all those bran foods for the same reason-to kill libido.

We stopped this barbaric tradition with my son, I am the last to be mutilated by tradition in my family.

And actually I think it was more than castration they sought. They wanted to cut more of the penis off (the balls are pretty worthless if never triggered). He also invented a device for the little girls. Horrible, like a meat slicer… Fortunately the girls around here got away clean. But the little boys are still immediately assaulted (within 2-3 days of birth) and nobody seems to care.

I always joke that perhaps once the LGBT get some rights recognized, and then perhaps women keep it going, and so on… til even atheists have rights, and then maybe someday, even babies will have rights…. like the right to choose or not to choose to slice 30% of their penis off at the risk of death or losing the whole noodle (which is worse?) and not to mention 20,000 nerve endings, GONE. (For reference, the clitoris has around 8,000)

Hmmm I’m seeing a theme here… oppress women, abhor gays, hate the self and mutilate our children. What do these things have in common? How are they connected? I would argue it all points at women. That is, motivated by women. Many people, myself included think St. Paul’s “Infirmity” was self-castration, not an uncommon practice of the day.

A: FEAR, Chrsitian fear, of women and their sexual power.

Interestingly, I theorize that they did it to themselves. By this I mean, by forcing women into a value role limited to physical beauty, and ignoring them as people (persons vs. property, or following the Adam & Eve model of person and property), it kinda backfired and now all men know how to do is talk, and control of the subtle energy, including sexuality has continued to be the only power women had for so very long… they are now quite skilled at it. Further… they have all the best colors, the bright ones.

I would also point out what I consider to be the end-all argument against circumcision. Nevermind that they have no real data, and that they change which disease it will protect one from nearly every decade…. Note that their main argument is that the glans, being moist is what allows higher case of disease transmission.

Then by that logic, we should indeed sew up the vagina, as it’s the same thing.

And realize, even if you leave the young human intact-you must be weary

Also, on my previous point-didn’t you ever wonder why Christians make such a big deal about gays but lesbians are an afterthought at best? And know that transmission (HIV) is LOWEST among lesbians-a useful fact when dealing with CHristians, whose favored argument for the current grossness (their claim of ownership of the inalienable rights of gays) is that nature “agrees” or “Proves it” since transmission is highest among gay men. Which is true, due to the thin lining of the rectum. But the point is empty upon finding out that lesbians are the lowest, as they too are “gay”, which destroys the silly argument with its own hidden fact.

See, it’s not about sodomy or laying with your brother. It’s about oppressing women, and thus being paranoid about a man who acts like one as this longest oppression of the largest minority is so deep in our culture that only a fool, man or woman, a fool would say they have no misogyny.

If you think that, then you put the blinders back on as the core of misogyny itself has not been addressed…. yet.

The Bible is silent about lesbian relations. So are the statute laws of most (all?) industrial countries. I read that between 1900 and 1970, there was ONE criminal case brought before New York City courts, involving lesbian behaviour. It resulted in an acquittal.

Sewing shut the vaginas of unmarried women is done in the Sudan, and perhaps in Somalia as well. A sort of surgical chastity belt. Ewwww….

Women have genuine sexual power. They can be quite indifferent to our nakedness. We are seldom indifferent to theirs. If she takes matters into her own hands, and works the velvety pump handle, he almost always rises to the occasion. Meanwhile, there is nothing I can do as a man that is guaranteed to turn a woman on. This gender asymmetry of sexual power has been feared since we lived in cave mouths. But did it egg our ancestors to circumcise with flint knives? I am not sure.

As for Victorian-Edwardian circumcision, I bet it was grounded in the desire of prim mothers and their nannies to alter the penis so that its hygiene required no attention. And to make grown men less horny. And it is true that 100-150 years ago, youthful masturbation was seen as morally disgusting, simply because all sexual release outside of the marriage bed was seen as abhorrent. Parents thought that masturbation required pumping the foreskin; take away the foreskin and presto, no masturbation!

Stressing over masturbation was gone by the time we baby boomers came along. Since 1940 or so, every boy is raised with a bathroom and hot tap water. Every boy takes a daily bath. Moms gave up their silly prudishness. The Brits and Kiwis have completely given up the Cult of the Bald Penis. In Australia and Canada, only a shrinking minority worship at that Temple. Only the USA can’t back off the 20th century Foreskin Holocaust…

There are 4 kinds of Female Genital Cutting/Mutilation (FGM). The worst involves the sewing up of the vaginal opening, leaving only two small holes, one for urine and the other for menstrual blood to pass. When the woman is married, she is cut open for consummation of the marriage and re-sewn then next morning. Imagine having to have sex when you’re bleeding from open wounds to the most sensitive part of your body…

This happens in several African countries, by the way.

Also, on the topic of turning a woman on…. Women DO get instantly turned on by a man’s body IF she’s turned on in her mind first. Nothing you can do to her physically will get her in the mood if you haven’t seduced her mentally and even emotionally first. And if a woman is under stress with a lot on her mind, you can forget it.

Your first two paragraphs are preaching to the choir. For 30 years, I have followed the indignation of educated North Atlantic women over FGM in Africa and in certain Islamic cultures. I have no time for the notion that FGM deserves a pass on grounds of cultural relativism.

“Nothing you can do to her physically will get her in the mood if you haven’t seduced her mentally and even emotionally first ” Men can be powerfully excited by a woman they dislike and/or disrespect. Her looks alone suffice. If she is shameless with her hands as well, she can be very very hard to resist. What I describe here can give rise to deep and ugly misunderstandings between men and women.

Indulging in the erotic urges should not be perceived as requiring lowered stress at the outset, but as being an active agent of stress reduction. Let your hands stray, and the passion will follow

To my readers – if you can read Spanish, this blogger has more additional ancient quotes about circumcision that show how the whole point was to reduce male sexuality, including from Thomas Aquinas and several Muslim sources. Highly recommended.

2-3 weirdos like Kellogg excepted, the pain was deemed to be a necessary evil, necessitated by the fact that local anesthetics did not exist, and general anesthesia was more dangerous then than now.

The germ theory of disease made the hygiene of the foreskin an imperative. But middle class parents did not want to inspect, and talk about the penises of their sons. Moreover, retracting the foreskin to inspect and clean it was assumed to put boys at risk of discovering the sinful joys of masturbation. That many boys are not fully retractable until age 10-15 was forgotten; a boy being unretractable at birth was deemed a problem. Circumcision was seen as reducing the hygiene of the foreskin to sitting in a bathtub 1-2x a week. No need to retract, no need for Mum or a nanny to look at the penis, no need to measure progress towards retraction.
Masturbation was deemed seriously immoral, because all sexual pleasure other than PIV in the marriage bed (a bit of foreplay was humoured) was deemed immoral.

American mores moved on since 1900, and will continue to move during this new century. But making a fetish of the bald penis waxed instead of waned, until the 1980s. Why? We do not know the rate of RIC for sure, but it seems stuck at 55%. Why? Why is polite America in denial about how the sensitivity and motility of the foreskin enhances sexual acts for both genders?

Yes, this makes sense it is to curb male sexuality.
The media and some quacks claim it prevents HIV, blindness, insanity, etc. A long history of quackery.
This is why they are performing mass circumcisions in Africa, because they feel African men are too horny and cannot control themselves. I’ve read similar writings that they used to circumcise black slaves out of ‘compassion’ because the poor negroes couldn’t contain themselves.

The cover story is to prevent disease, but the true intent is to make men less interested in sex.
Jewish and Muslims do it for this reason, especially Muslims, they are so sexually repressed they also cut their girls and make them cover their faces. This is all about sexual repression.

I was intact up until 6 months ago and everything mentioned is true. I no longer feel any sensation whatsoever. What was once a mind blowing experience, an all body and mind experience has gone. These thousands of nerves that have gone affect pleasure and the brain. As a result I have gone into depression. Having this done as an adult I know both sides and it is unreal. This makes men angry, it stops us from loving, it makes relationships meaningless because the love, the feelings, the intimacy have all been taken. Is it a coincidence that the nations that do this usually have a male population who are angry and aggressive, women who are unhappy. This destroys what nature intended. I do not think I will ever get married or be intimate again, because hard, aggressive intercourse is not me and that it was it had made me. I was a passion, warm, tender lover know I am the opposite and would rather not inflict that on a partner or myself because it is not me. I cannot tell you how sad I am, my life is in ruins.

There is hope, there is an organisation called Forgen who are intending to regenerate the foreskin. The science is there but doctors and the medical community do not want this for obvious reasons. This brings them money and gives the government exactly what they want, unhappy people. Please if you can visit the website http://www.foregen.org. Like us on facebook, converse with us I was intact up until 6 months ago and everything mentioned is true. I no longer feel any sensation whatsoever. What was once a mind blowing experience, an all body and mind experience has gone. These thousands of nerves that have gone affect pleasure and the brain. As a result I have gone into depression. Having this done as an adult I know both sides and it is unreal. This makes men angry, it stops us from loving, it makes relationships meaningless because the love, the feelings, the intimacy have all been taken. Is it a coincidence that the nations that do this usually have a male population who are angry and aggressive, women who are unhappy. This destroys what nature intended. I do not think I will ever get married or be intimate again, because hard, aggressive intercourse is not me and that it was it had made me. I was a passion, warm, tender lover know I am the opposite and would rather not inflict that on a partner or myself because it is not me. I cannot tell you how sad I am, my life is in ruins.

There is hope, there is an organisation called Forgen who are intending to regenerate the foreskin. The science is there but doctors and the medical community do not want this for obvious reasons. This brings them money and gives the government exactly what they want, unhappy people. Please if you can visit the website http://www.foregen.org Like us on facebook, converse with us on twitter and please donate if you can. We require 5000 members at $10 a month to make this happen in 5 years. The more support we get, the sooner this can happen. There are millions of unhappy men and women out there. Once this comes to fruition and it will, this evil barbaric procedure will end forever. The project is really starting to take off. The results of the first experiment on bovine foreskins will be released on September “15th. The organisation also has permission to experiment on donated human foreskins which will be acquired hopefully by the end of the year. Please support and help if you can and spread awareness. This has to happen in order for it to end once and for all. on twitter and please donate if you can. We require 5000 members at $10 a month to make this happen in 5 years. The more support we get, the sooner this can happen. There are millions of unhappy men and women out there. Once this comes to fruition and it will, this evil barbaric procedure will end forever. The project is really starting to take off. The results of the first experiment on bovine foreskins will be released on September “15th. The organisation also has permission to experiment on donated human foreskins which will be acquired hopefully by the end of the year. Please support and help if you can and spread awareness. This has to happen in order for it to end once and for all.

I was intact up until 6 months ago and everything mentioned is true. I no longer feel any sensation whatsoever. What was once a mind blowing experience, an all body and mind experience has gone. These thousands of nerves that have gone affect pleasure and the brain. As a result I have gone into depression. Having this done as an adult I know both sides and it is unreal. This makes men angry, it stops us from loving, it makes relationships meaningless because the love, the feelings, the intimacy have all been taken. Is it a coincidence that the nations that do this usually have a male population who are angry and aggressive, women who are unhappy. This destroys what nature intended. I do not think I will ever get married or be intimate again, because hard, aggressive intercourse is not me and that it was it had made me. I was a passion, warm, tender lover know I am the opposite and would rather not inflict that on a partner or myself because it is not me. I cannot tell you how sad I am, my life is in ruins.

There is hope, there is an organisation called Forgen who are intending to regenerate the foreskin. The science is there but doctors and the medical community do not want this for obvious reasons. This brings them money and gives the government exactly what they want, unhappy people. Please if you can visit the website http://www.foregen.org. Like us on facebook, converse with us I was intact up until 6 months ago and everything mentioned is true. I no longer feel any sensation whatsoever. What was once a mind blowing experience, an all body and mind experience has gone. These thousands of nerves that have gone affect pleasure and the brain. As a result I have gone into depression. Having this done as an adult I know both sides and it is unreal. This makes men angry, it stops us from loving, it makes relationships meaningless because the love, the feelings, the intimacy have all been taken. Is it a coincidence that the nations that do this usually have a male population who are angry and aggressive, women who are unhappy. This destroys what nature intended. I do not think I will ever get married or be intimate again, because hard, aggressive intercourse is not me and that it was it had made me. I was a passion, warm, tender lover know I am the opposite and would rather not inflict that on a partner or myself because it is not me. I cannot tell you how sad I am, my life is in ruins.

There is hope, there is an organisation called Forgen who are intending to regenerate the foreskin. The science is there but doctors and the medical community do not want this for obvious reasons. This brings them money and gives the government exactly what they want, unhappy people. Please if you can visit the website http://www.foregen.org Like us on facebook, converse with us on twitter and please donate if you can. We require 5000 members at $10 a month to make this happen in 5 years. The more support we get, the sooner this can happen. There are millions of unhappy men and women out there. Once this comes to fruition and it will, this evil barbaric procedure will end forever. The project is really starting to take off. The results of the first experiment on bovine foreskins will be released on September “15th. The organisation also has permission to experiment on donated human foreskins which will be acquired hopefully by the end of the year. Please support and help if you can and spread awareness. This has to happen in order for it to end once and for all. on twitter and please donate if you can. We require 5000 members at $10 a month to make this happen in 5 years. The more support we get, the sooner this can happen. There are millions of unhappy men and women out there. Once this comes to fruition and it will, this evil barbaric procedure will end forever. The project is really starting to take off. The results of the first experiment on bovine foreskins will be released on September “15th. The organisation also has permission to experiment on donated human foreskins which will be acquired hopefully by the end of the year. Please support and help if you can and spread awareness. This has to happen in order for it to end once and for all.